


each venture is a new beginning

by bluebeholder



Series: One and the Same [1]
Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders (Dragon Age) Positive, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon-Typical Violence, Cats, Further Tags Inside, Happy Ending, I promise, M/M, Minor F!Hawke/Merrill, Rivals to Confused Friends to Lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-03-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:26:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 25,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Anders and Fenris accidentally adopt a cat together. In between navigating Hawke's misadventures, trying to co-parent a kitten, and fixing the broken city they call home, they learn more about each other than they ever intended.They also fall in love.
Relationships: Anders/Fenris (Dragon Age)
Series: One and the Same [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654444
Comments: 298
Kudos: 221





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello and welcome! This is my first foray into fenders-land, and let me tell you, I never expected to be here. I began this story as an exercise in exploring “what if these two men constantly at odds with one another adopted a cat together,” intending for it to be platonic…and then it stopped being platonic because they both caught an incurable case of Feelings. 
> 
> Honestly, I didn’t even _ship_ them when I started writing; I thought it was kind of off-putting. Then, as the story developed, I decided to try to convince myself otherwise and, well. One unexpectedly long fic later, it seems I’ve developed a new OTP. I hope that I’ve done this ship, these characters, and this world justice!
> 
> Title comes from T.S. Eliot’s poem “East Coker,” which could honestly be an emotional map of this story. This fic is complete as of time of posting; I’ll be releasing new chapters Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday. All thanks to both my beta readers (Pyxyl and adrift_me) for their help and encouragement! 
> 
> Character death is a complex issue in this story, but the Chantry explosion and its unpleasant aftermath _will_ come up eventually. Please remember that, no matter how grim it looks, this fic is tagged as “Happy Ending, I Promise.” It will be okay. I swear.

Fenris always believes Anders is exaggerating his love of cats.

At every turn, if it isn’t mage rights or a discourse on spirit healing or talking about his clinic, it’s cats. Ser-Pounce-a-Lot this, Mr. Wiggums that. Vicious Kirkwall alley cats, fluffy Orlesian beasts imported from Val Royeaux, hardy Free Marches mousers…it doesn’t seem to matter. To the entertainment of all, Anders can and will try to pet any cat, no matter how feral or skittish.

Fenris generally views this as just one more incomprehensible part of the strange mage. Anders has many facets that make Fenris look at him askance: his constant refrain of ‘mage rights,’ his insistence on living in a sewer, his much-patched yet foppish outfit…it all adds up to one singularly chaotic individual who Fenris has no desire to understand.

That desire lasts for about two years after their first meeting.

One evening, it’s all hands for cards at the Hanged Man. Tonight it seems to be an excuse for Hawke to flirt with Merrill while Isabela makes sly innuendoes that fly right over Merrill’s head and Varric scribbles madly on a manuscript. Aveline has won almost every hand and all the money tonight. Fenris is just about to give up and go home when he hears it: the just-barely-audible crying of a very small cat.

In the raucous atmosphere, he thinks for a moment he’s the only one who heard it, but when he looks up from his cards he sees Anders alert and eyeing the back door.

“I’ll be right back,” Anders says, dropping his cards face-up ungracefully and shoving his chair back, nearly hard enough to knock it over. He bolts for the door, dodging drunkards nimbly, and vanishes.

“What’s got into him?” Hawke asks, distracted from Merrill for a moment.

“Cat,” Fenris says briefly. He rises with much more grace, replacing his chair politely, and follows Anders out the back door.

By the time he gets out into the narrow alley running behind the Hanged Man, Anders is already crouched over a tiny scrap of gray fur huddled in a corner between two crates. “It won’t let me pick it up,” he says, looking up in frustration, showing a bleeding scratch on his hand.

Fenris kneels and, with care, scoops up the kitten. He ignores its needle-fine claws sinking into his hand; he feels worse on a daily basis just from the lyrium brands. The kitten is so tiny that it fits neatly in his cupped hands. Barely old enough to be away from its mother, really. “What’s the injury?”

Gently, Anders checks the kitten over. “Broken leg,” he says, lightly prodding one leg and receiving an anguished mew in response. “Shhh…we’ll help you, it’s all right…”

“How bad?”

“It needs more attention than I can give it here,” Anders says. He strokes the kitten’s tiny head with one finger.

“Your clinic, then,” Fenris says, rising to his feet.

Anders gives him a vaguely surprised look, but doesn’t comment. Before they go, Anders insists on wrapping the kitten thoroughly in a bandage, to make sure it doesn’t wriggle around and do more damage to itself. In this, Fenris defers to the expert.

Back inside, they make their excuses and apologies to the rest of the group. Fenris pretends not to see Aveline’s raised eyebrows or Merrill’s delighted expression. “They’re bonding,” Hawke stage-whispers to Varric, who just shakes his head and chuckles. Isabela smirks at them, eyebrows waggling suggestively. Of course, no one can just let this pass without comment. Sometimes Fenris wonders about his friends.

The trek to the clinic is mostly silent. None of Kirkwall's many thieves choose to disturb them this evening. Were Fenris with another companion, he might be more talkative to fill the silence, but he's with Anders. They haven’t been at each other’s throats lately, but any conversation has been stiff and businesslike. Periodically Anders asks how the kitten seems; Fenris answers tersely. The kitten has quieted down. Perhaps it senses that it’s safe in their hands.

Anders doesn’t light the lantern by the door as they enter the silent clinic. He has a couple of patients overnight for observation, but he and Fenris are quiet enough not to disturb the sleepers here. A single lantern on Anders’ desk is enough light to see by. There’s a pile of bandages which Anders co-opts as a soft spot for the kitten and Fenris sets the little creature down, unwrapping its makeshift blanket.

“Poor creature,” he says softly, leaning on the desk. It looks droopy and tired, too hurt to do more than make small mewling sounds.

Anders, very carefully, checks the kitten over. “Not a terrible break after all, nothing’s through the skin,” he says. “Hold it, would you? I need it still so the bone sets correctly.”

Fenris holds the kitten still, making the best soothing noises he can manage. He watches Anders’ fingertips glow, magic suffusing the kitten’s injury. It’s just a moment before the glow dies down and Anders steps back.

“There,” he says. “It needs to rest for a little while, but that should do it.”

Fenris gives the suddenly-sleepy kitten one more gentle scratch under the chin before stepping back. “Keep it away from the residents down here,” he advises dryly. He’s heard the stories: people here are starved enough to eat anything.

Anders winces. “That...yes, I’ll keep that in mind,” he says. He pauses, then looks sideways at Fenris. “Your mansion might be safer than the clinic, for a cat.”

Fenris turns to look up at Anders. “You want me to take it?”

“Ah, it’ll do better in someone else’s care,” Anders says. He looks down at the sleeping kitten, curled in a scraggly ball on the makeshift bed. His lips twist a little, visibly pained. Fenris has heard enough of Anders’ ranting to guess where his thoughts have wandered. That’s the expression he wears when he slips into more aggressive self-deprecation.

He might not understand the mage, or generally care for his politics, but Fenris isn’t heartless. “I’ll take care of it,” he says, “and...well, you healed it, so I suppose it’s only _just_ for you to get to see it when you wish.”

Anders turns an amazed look on him. “Did you honestly make a joke—“

“Venhedis, mage, do not turn this into a production,” Fenris mutters, carefully gathering up the kitten. It mews and curls up in his hands, a tiny warm bundle. “It’s an offer, take it or leave it.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It occurs to me that I should warn everyone: I had no good way, when breaking this down into chapters, to keep them all of reasonably similar length. My sincerest apologies! Saturday's chapter is significantly longer.

He didn’t really expect Anders to take the offer to visit. But two days later, there the mage is on Fenris’ doorstep, wondering if he can see the kitten. “It’s a slow day,” Anders says, “and I thought, well…”

“Come in,” Fenris says, a little stupefied. He’s had Anders here before, of course, but only when Hawke and usually someone else were along too. Having Anders here on his own feels distinctly odd. The mage clutches his staff tight, looking for all the world like he’s preparing for Fenris to stab him.

Silently, Fenris gestures at the stairs. He is not one for small talk with the mage at the best of times, so he doesn’t bother now. Anders seems inclined to agree, following Fenris up the stairs without comment.

The kitten is staying in Fenris’ room, where he can be reasonably sure it won’t get into trouble without him noticing. He got the creature clean and introduced it to the space, but it seems the little creature is still recovering from its injury. Just now, it’s occupying its box on the floor in the corner, sleeping in a pile of soft blankets. It doesn’t wake when they enter.

“Oh,” Anders says, face lighting up, “ _hello_.”

Fenris leans on the doorframe and watches, amused, as Anders crosses the room to sit down beside the kitten. He sets his staff aside carelessly, letting it roll away from him and out of arm’s reach, whole posture loosening. When he looks up at Fenris, it’s as if ten years have dropped off his face. “You’ve taken good care of it,” he says. “…is it a male or female?”

“I have no idea,” Fenris says. “I didn’t check.”

“Mmm.” Anders doesn’t make further comment, merely scoops up the kitten. In his long hands, the kitten looks even smaller than it does when Fenris holds it. It stretches and yawns but doesn’t protest as Anders strokes its back. He looks it over and, after a moment, proclaims: “Female.”

The kitten mews and, tiny triangular tail bobbing, begins to try to climb clumsily up Anders’ sleeve. “She’s very brave,” Fenris says. “Climbing a stranger like that.”

Anders smiles down at the kitten. “Yes, she _is_. You’re very courageous, aren’t you? Independent!”

“Cats generally are.”

“Yes, well, not always at this age. What shall we name her?”

“ _Name_ her?” Fenris hadn’t really thought about that. Cats, it seemed to him, didn’t require names. Back in Tevinter, they rarely had names; indeed, they were barely even kept as pets, as they are here in the south. He can’t remember a single cat name off the top of his head, though he recalls that kitchen slaves in Danarius’ household were always happy to have a cat around to keep down the mice.

“Yes,” Anders says. He looks thoughtful, examining the kitten, which has just reached his elbow and appears to be deciding whether or not to tumble off. “She has white feet, we could call her _Bootsie_ —”

Fenris waves his hand. “Absolutely not,” he says. “I will not allow you to inflict your atrocious naming habits on an innocent kitten. Fasta vass, she deserves something _dignified_.”

Anders sighs. “You name her, then, if my ideas won’t do.”

“I like Libertas,” Fenris says after a moment. “Cats are free and independent. It suits her.”

He gets a long look for that, and then a half smile. “Exactly the kind of name I’d expect from you.”

Fenris narrows his eyes. “Is that an insult?”

Anders shakes his head, returning his attention to the kitten—now bumbling her way up his coat into his ridiculous feathered pauldrons. He catches her with one hand, gently detaching her to mews of protest and returning her to his lap. “Just an observation, Fenris.”

His words are neutral, but there’s a certain warmth to his tone that has never been there before when talking to Fenris. It’s unsettling, a little, but Fenris puts it out of his mind. Anders, the man who _dreams_ in cats, is holding a kitten in his lap. The affection must be bleeding through.

“Remind me to tell you about Mr. Wiggums sometime,” Anders says after a moment. “That name wasn’t my fault, at least.”

“I’ll remember,” Fenris says, and promptly puts it out of his mind. What are the chances that he and Anders will ever be in a situation to need that kind of small talk?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Roman goddess Libertas is often depicted with a cat at her feet. Despite this, it’s pretty clear that Rome didn’t generally see cats as pets: unlike dogs, whose names are known in the historical record, cats are not recorded the same way. Anyway, Libertas was invoked during the legal ceremony for freeing a slave, which seemed appropriate for Fenris.
> 
> I’ve got a lot of thoughts on how to portray these two. Suffice it to say that, after studying their canon interactions (including things like approval gains and losses), I found no basis for a relationship of total vitriolic hate. Of course they aren’t best friends, and have a LOT of disagreements, but I don’t envision either of them being truly hateful to the other. Perennially thoughtless? Yes. Often asshole-ish? Yes. Frequently downright rude? Definitely! But there are things—that we’ll see down the road—which just plain read as cordial or even outright friendly. 
> 
> The interactions which I believe give rise to the interpretation of them as outright enemies mostly come from Act 3, a period of _incredibly_ high stress that comes in the wake of major chaos in Act 2 and the years leading up to Act 3. I’m thinking about that fucking approval gain for giving Fenris back as well as Fenris advocating for Anders’ death, mostly.
> 
> Tensions between them run higher than ever, since Anders is dealing (mostly alone) with the terrible situation in Kirkwall and Fenris is _literally_ being hunted by Danarius. After six years of bickering and strain, it comes as no shock to me that they’d both completely snap in regard to each other during those final days. 
> 
> But as far as this fic goes, _that_ is all in the future.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notice for claustrophobia and discussion of Anders' time in the Circle.

The stone door doesn’t even tremble when Fenris punches it.

Well, if that didn’t do it, the steady stream of invective he aims at the door won’t break it down either. “…and fuck you,” he finishes to the door, somewhat lamely, having run through every possible curse he knows in Tevene and Qunlat, and reduced now to the Trade tongue. He winces as his head gives another throb. This is _not_ the day he was planning on.

It should have been a routine job. Hawke needed extra hands tracking down some noblewoman’s lost jewelry, and asked Fenris along. He agreed, for lack of anything else to do, only to discover that the rest of the party consisted of Merrill and Anders. Hawke spent half the time flirting aggressively with the blood mage; Anders, meanwhile, was snappish and irritated at being pulled away from his work. After two hours with them, any hope Fenris had that this would be a good day was dashed.

Then, down in the sewers, they’d been overcome by an unexpectedly strong resistance.

Fenris was doing fine until someone caught him with a club to the back of the head. By the time he recovered his senses, he’d already been trussed up and was being dragged through the sewers. To his dismay, Anders had been seized the same way. They’d been thrown in this particularly damp cell, the door had been locked, and now here they are.

There’s a dim shaft of light from a narrow grate overhead, which provides just enough illumination for Fenris to study their surroundings. He doesn’t see manacles on the walls or skulls in the corner, which is a good sign. The lack of other exits is _not_ a good sign. Fenris can’t, unfortunately, phase through walls. The only option is to wait for their captors to return and make a break for it. Though they’re missing their weapons, Fenris is reasonably confident in his abilities. Anders will, of course, be an asset in their escape.

“I suppose we have to wait,” he says, turning to Anders.

He pauses when he realizes the mage is on the floor. Not lying down, but pressed against the wall with his knees drawn up to his chest. When Anders speaks, his voice sounds forcefully measured. “I suppose we have to,” he says.

Slowly, Fenris sits down. He watches Anders carefully, for any signs of blue light. None are apparent. In the faint light, he can see the sheen of sweat on Anders’ forehead. His eyes are tightly closed. “Are you…well?” Fenris asks cautiously.

“ _Fine_ ,” Anders snaps.

Fenris holds up his hands, though Anders can’t see. “Very well. You look distressed.”

“Don’t like tight spaces,” Anders says. His breathing is harsh and increasingly audible. The sound of panic. “I’ll be fine. Just. Shut up.”

In the interest of self-preservation, Fenris shuts up. He looks up at the grate overhead and considers if it’s wide enough for him to squeeze through, if Anders helped him reach it. No, his shoulders would never fit…

After a minute or two, Anders chokes out, “I lied. Talk. Please. About _anything_.”

For a moment, Fenris contemplates. “Libertas pushed a wine glass off the table yesterday.”

“She _did_?” Anders smiles, though it looks a little fraught.

“Apparently I wasn’t paying enough attention to her,” Fenris says with a shrug. “It was cracking apart already anyway. Antivan glass, getting old. No great loss.”

Anders shakes his head. “ _Cats_.”

“Cats,” Fenris agrees, smiling as he thinks of the increasingly-adventurous gray kitten. He scours his mind for further non-confrontational conversation topics, and comes up with: “Mr. Wiggums. You wanted me to remind you to tell me about him?”

“Oh,” Anders says. His voice shakes a little. “Now might not be the best time.”

Fenris shrugs. “I don’t see how there will be a better one.”

“I hate that you’re right,” Anders grumbles, with a hint of his usual tone. He sighs and rubs his eyes with one hand. “Very well. Mr. Wiggums was…I suppose he was my first cat. Not mine, really, we met in the Circle.”

In another place, Fenris might have thrown out a comment, but he decides that now isn’t the time. He holds his tongue and listens.

“I’d met other cats before, of course. Grew up with mousers on the farm and, if you live in a Circle tower, cats are your best bet at having a pet. I always loved them.” Anders pauses and shakes his head. “I never really looked twice at Mr. Wiggums until they threw me in solitary, though.”

“Not much of a looker?”

“ _No_ ,” Anders says. “He was old as the hills, had teeth that didn’t fit together right, and his face was half squashed. He was also mean. Scratched anyone who so much as looked at him. But he was good at his job, so they kept him around all the same.”

Fenris folds his arms. It’s cold in this cell. “You befriended him immediately.”

“He got in between the bars one night,” Anders says, nodding. “Just came right in and climbed in my lap, purring up a storm. He let me pet him. Brought me mice which, no, I did not eat. Let me play with him and talk to him. Kept me warm. I will never understand exactly what drove that cat, but I…have a lot to be grateful for. I’m not sure I’d be here if he hadn’t kept coming back.”

“We should all be grateful to him, then.”

Anders looks up at that as if in surprise, studying Fenris in the dim light. Finally, he looks up at the grate overhead. “Yes, you should. That cat gave me the chance to run again. There was an incident…a few Templars took it into their heads to see if I was ready to be _compliant_ yet. Mr. Wiggums didn’t seem to like their methods.”

The way Anders says the word “methods” makes Fenris’ skin crawl a little. He’s used the word before with similar inflections. “…he was a house cat,” he says, in lieu of probing deeper.

“Yes, and was apparently angry enough at the Templars to attract the attention of a Maker-damned _rage demon_ ,” Anders says. “It caused enough chaos that I got out in the confusion. And…well, here I am now.”

Over the course of the story, Anders’ voice has evened out. The expression on his face approximates his usual animated one. Were they not in such dire circumstances, Fenris might have managed a genuine smile at the sight. “Despite his name, he was a creature of great valor,” he says solemnly.

“It _was_ a rather terrible name, wasn’t it,” Anders says. “But I think I’m still fond of it.”

The sudden explosion in the room outside their cell, accompanied by the clash of blades and Aveline’s battle cry, is the cue that the conversation is over. They scramble to their feet and, if Fenris offers Anders a hand, neither of them feel the need to mention it later. It’s just common kindness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn’t find _anything_ on dishware in Thedas. I tried my best, but came down to the fact that wineglasses apparently Do Exist, but with no further information. In our world, wineglasses were invented in Venice—so I kind of threw the creation of wineglasses at Antiva and hoped for the best. The degradation Fenris describes of the glass (weeping and cracking) was a byproduct of the original process for glass purification. It would take until the 1600s for the English to figure out how to prevent the “glass disease” from smashing their glasses.


	4. Chapter 4

Fenris pokes the dying fire with a stick and sighs when it does nothing more than sputter vaguely at him before dying further. Of course. He determinedly does _not_ listen to the soft noises coming from the tent Hawke and Merrill share, a little way back from the fire. A few weeks ago, Hawke had finally convinced Merrill to return her affections, and _this_ has been the result.

It is not pleasant for Fenris to hear.

Of course he’d agreed to go along when Hawke asked. Fenris would probably follow Hawke all the way to Qunandar, if she asked nicely and promised to go _around_ Tevinter instead of straight through. A short trip along the coast to catch up with some brigands? It hadn’t required any thought at all.

Except that now he’s stranded overnight in the middle of the wilds, on watch while Hawke and Merrill do things that would make Isabela blush, with Anders glowing in his sleep five feet away.

Yes, _glowing_.

Fenris had never noticed the glow before, despite their many shared campsites in the past. But Anders had apparently given away his tent (many-times patched and sagging at every seam) to a needy refugee family, and since it was the warmest part of the year, hadn’t bothered to find a new one before this excursion. His bedroll alone is not enough to mask the blue glow emanating gently from the cracks in his skin.

The sight makes Fenris want to pull out his own hair from frustration. Spirit possession is all well and good when he doesn’t have to see it, but staring at the evidence of Anders’ bad decisions is particularly irksome.

Hawke lets out a particularly loud moan and Fenris jams his hands over his ears with a hiss. “Fasta vass, Hawke…”

Far be it from him to deny his friends their pleasures in a world so full of misery, but could they not enjoy those pleasures _out of his earshot_? Judging by the tenor of that sound, at least it won’t be long before things wind down.

On the other side of the fire, the blue glow dies. There’s a moment’s pause, then Anders sits up, rubbing his face with his hand. Fenris cautiously takes his hands away from his ears. “Andraste’s flaming knickers,” Anders mutters.

“Welcome to the party,” Fenris says dryly, as Merrill’s voice drifts through the night air.

“I thought I burned my invitation,” Anders says. He glares at the tent and sighs. “I’m not coming along anymore if Hawke can’t keep her hands to herself long enough to be _decent_ on these trips.”

Fenris shrugs. “We could leave them here and let them walk back to Kirkwall on their own.”

“…which would require _us_ to march through shade-infested territory all by ourselves, at night,” Anders says. “No, thank you. I’ll put up with… _that_.” He gestures widely, encompassing the tent, Hawke, Merrill, and the symphony of sounds issuing from the whole tableau.

It only takes few more moments for whatever’s happening to end. Silence descends over the campsite, this time, it seems, to stay. Fenris sighs. “Finally.”

“ _Finally_ ,” Anders echoes, and throws a smile at Fenris.

Startled, Fenris returns it.

He’s not sure when he started noticing such things, but in the dull glow of the firelight, Anders—despite the smudge of dirt on his cheek and the sleep-tousled mess of his hair—looks extremely attractive. Handsome, even.

Anders seems unaffected by the moment, his smile fading naturally after a beat or two. He leans back on his elbows, looking up at the sky. “I don’t think I’ll be getting back to sleep any time soon. Lucky the stars are beautiful, at least I have something to look at.”

“Mm. I would call Hawke for the next watch, but going over there would catch her _in flagrante delicto_ , I think,” Fenris says. He shakes off his thoughts. They’re useless ones anyway.

“In _what_.”

Fenris scrambles for a good translation from Tevene. “In the middle of sex,” he says after a moment. “Or at least naked.”

Anders shakes his head, still staring up at the stars. “You’re full of surprises.”

“Oh?”

“Always with the languages I don’t understand,” Anders says and, wait, is he _teasing_? It’s the same tone he uses on Hawke or Varric. Still, the words put Fenris’ hackles right up.

“I learned it for my own protection,” Fenris growls. “You do not need to—”

Anders looks right at him. “I think it’s interesting,” he says. “Can’t speak a word of it, unless it’s our cat’s name. And there you are, like it’s nothing…curses make sense, but you seem half fluent.”

“The wealthy and powerful like to show their status by speaking Tevene,” Fenris says, a little grudgingly. “No one speaks it at length, but liberal use of phrases shows money and education.”

The elevated brows he gets for that are clear enough. How, Anders is plainly thinking, did a slave get the money and education to learn it?

“It showed just as much status to have me speaking it as well as the magisters and aristocrats around me,” Fenris says. He allows himself a half-smile: “And besides, I am a quick learner. What I was not taught, I picked up on my own.”

Anders is still watching him, calm and relaxed as a cat himself. With the feathered pauldrons off, he looks more reasonable. Less eccentric. “Educating yourself is a noble pursuit.”

The half-smile turns sharp, Fenris can feel it. “Not if you ask a magister.”

“And not if you ask Templars.”

There’s a breathless pause.

This is, ordinarily, the point where the arguing begins. Except that tonight, Fenris hears what he hasn’t ever really heard: that Anders isn’t trying to one-up him, or to claim superiority. He’s trying, in his own clumsy way, to _empathize_. It isn’t perfect, and Fenris isn’t planning to spill his soul just now, but he decides not to take offense.

“Well, then,” Anders says. He relaxes back on the ground, arms folded under his head. He doesn’t say anything else, just lapses into silence. After a few minutes, the blue glow starts up again. Now, for some reason, it doesn’t make Fenris feel nearly so frustrated.

Fenris sits back and looks up at the sky. He understands why Anders was looking. They really are beautiful tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rolling with the headcanon that, since dreams (especially mage dreams) take you close to the Fade, Justice gets a little more active at night. Anders glows when he sleeps.
> 
> I know Hawke isn’t able to enter into a romance with Merrill until about two years after I started it here. It was a mistake on my part—when I started writing the fic, I was hazy on when exactly it would take place, and it was supposed to be a short oneshot besides. By the time I started nailing down timeline details, it was too late to undo without having to remove this scene, which I love and which my beta reader agreed would be a mistake to take out.


	5. Chapter 5

His reading is getting progressively better. Fenris knows he has a knack for languages and that, apparently, extends to the written word. In his spare time, Fenris sincerely enjoys practicing his letters. The paper he uses is cheap—so as not to waste money on novice mistakes—and so is his ink. He promises himself that, when he feels he’s good enough, that he will get hold of better materials.

In the spirit of their newfound (and still, where the cat is not concerned, somewhat grudging) camaraderie, Anders passes on to Fenris many short literary pieces he finds. Pamphlets for theatrical performances, political and religious tracts, and poetry all make their way from his desk to Fenris’. Anders never passes on his own writings to Fenris, though, despite his manifesto being such a constant presence in conversation. Fenris approves of Anders keeping to the unspoken terms of their truce.

One evening, Anders stops by to play with Libertas and drop off a screed on the subject of the Chain Twins and Kirkwall’s misapplication of shipping tariffs. It promises, according to Anders, to be a horribly tedious read. Fenris is still pleased.

Anders has departed for Darktown by the time that Fenris sits down to stumble through the pamphlet, a bottle of wine on standby for the inevitable frustration that will come with words he doesn’t know. It’s only when he opens the pamphlet that he notices a second piece of paper. It must have slipped inside the pamphlet during transit. The paper is a different color, written in scrawling, cramped, hasty handwriting, with many words scribbled out.

“Venhedis, he sent me the manifesto,” Fenris mutters.

The thing is nearly a joke among their friends. Anders smiles when people laugh, but it’s always a tight smile, and he changes the subject quickly enough. Fenris has never bothered to ask about it: he’s reasonably sure the thing would sound like Tevinter propaganda.

But now here it is, in his hand.

Judging by the state of the paper, Anders didn’t deliberately send this. It looks like a discarded draft copy, not a polished product. Fenris nearly tosses it in the fire, but pauses.

“Why not?” he asks aloud.

He takes a sip of wine, to fortify himself, and starts to read.

_~~Mages~~ ~~The Maker~~ Andraste feared ~~magic~~ the influence of magic ~~over the deeds of men~~. This is because she suffered at the hands of magisters ~~as many have and still do~~. Yet the fears of the ~~Bride of the Maker~~ Prophet made no impact on the will of the Maker, who continues to gift ~~men~~ us with magic. It is the Maker’s will that magic exist in the world, despite its ill use by those of evil intent. ~~The hypothetical future actions should not dictate~~ The oppression of mages does not stem from the will of the Maker, but from the fears of ~~the Prophet. There is a difference: Andraste is the Maker’s Bride, and not the Maker in mortal shape~~ men. ~~Justification of continued suffering~~ To justify continued suffering of mages is to deny the will of the Maker. _

The paragraph breaks off there, with a large blot as though a quill tip rested on the paper for a long while in thought that went nowhere. Fenris sets the paper down and considers it for a moment. It isn’t the vitriol he’d expected. Clearly there’s more happening before and after this brief paragraph, but the words are thoughtful, carefully considered. Not at all the ravings of a madman.

Of course, that doesn’t make the words _correct_. Fenris glances down at his arm, at the lyrium winding through his skin, and clenches his fist. The stabbing pain from the brands on his palms makes him see stars. He’s seen firsthand the decadence, the horror, that can come from rule by mages. The Chantry is the only thing preventing mages here from establishing a regime like the one in the Imperium.

Now, not all mages, Fenris concedes, are terrible. Merrill is sweet-natured and good at heart; Anders is a selfless and caring man, even to the point of self-martyrdom. But they, they are exceptions that prove the rule. The fact that he must consider them exceptional demonstrates the futility of any attempt to bring mages into society at large. And even these exceptional two make irresponsible choices—blood magic and voluntary spirit possession are not to be taken lightly.

He doesn’t toss the scrap in the fire, in the end. Naïve nonsense it may be, but still. Fenris doesn’t like to throw away the written word.

Mixed in among the other papers on his desk, the scrap of manifesto is quickly forgotten. But the words on it linger in Fenris’ mind, asking him to turn them over and examine them at the most inopportune moments. He doesn’t feel any _friendlier_ toward them, of course. They’re no less ridiculous for his having read them.

Still, Fenris feels as if he’s a little less frustrated with Anders after the reading. It seems Anders has noticed, giving Fenris quizzical looks when Fenris lets things pass without comment. Fenris doesn’t bother to explain. He suspects Anders would not appreciate the explanation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit paraphrased (and edited, and overwritten) here comes from the scrap that can be found in DAI (“Notes Found in a Mage’s Hut”). It also appears in Anders’ rivalry path, read aloud to Hawke. Act 2 has not yet begun as of the time this scene occurs, so he hasn’t finalized the passage yet.


	6. Chapter 6

It’s always a fun evening when Chantry proselytizers arrive at the Hanged Man to encourage appropriate behavior of patrons.

By “fun,” Fenris means “miserable.”

Most of the people he associates with pay lip service to the Chantry, at best. Hawke is pretty tight-lipped about her real feelings on the matter, but considering that she’s sleeping with Merrill on the regular and consorting with Anders in a friendly way, Fenris guesses that she has a few issues with Chantry doctrine. Varric’s books are apparently on thin ice with the Chantry as far as content goes. Isabela is free with her opinion that Chantry brothers and sisters need to “live a little.” Merrill and Anders, between them, have _incredibly_ poor opinions of the Chantry—perhaps the only place in which they can find common ground.

As for Fenris, he approves of the Chantry as an institution. With actual faith, however, he is less certain. He is certainly not a man who could be reasonably considered _devout._

Besides, all of them are too busy drinking, eating, flirting meaninglessly with one another, and playing cards to listen to a prudish Chantry sister preaching of chastity and abstinence. Under the stern gaze of the holy ladies, many patrons make themselves scarce, looking for a tavern with less of a chance of hearing the Chant of Light recited at them. At Hawke’s word, however, the table in the corner remains obstinately seated.

“Let ’em try to run us off,” she says, with a rakish grin.

Of course, in the way things always go, Hawke appears to have been tempting fate. One sister eventually makes her way to their corner. Perhaps fifty years old, with strands of gray hair emerging from under her hood, she stands over them, surveying the group with a distinct curl of contempt to her lip. 

“Can we _help_ you?” Hawke drawls, without looking up from her cards.

“It seems that I have been sent tonight to help _you_ ,” the sister replies.

Fenris leans back in his seat and takes a bite of bread. It’s the usual hearty stuff the Hanged Man serves, dark rye bread that tastes particularly good with cider. The excuse of eating prevents him having to say anything, which is good, because Varric jumps in.

“Then sit down and ante up, sister,” he says, charming as ever, gesturing at the one empty seat at the table.

She scowls, but for a moment Fenris thinks she’ll sit. Then Isabela, at the adjacent seat, swings her legs gracefully up to prop her feet on the chair. “Sorry, it’s taken,” she says, winking at the sister.

“Even were such pastimes permitted to me, I would not play with such…people,” the sister says, drawing back and surveying the table. Her eyes linger especially on Fenris and Merrill. Fenris stares back, level and unmoved, but the sister isn’t cowed.

Hawke, despite her apparent concentration on her cards, must see it too. She sets down her cards and looks up at the sister. “Got a problem with my friends?” she asks. It’s the same tone she usually uses when she’s threatening to kill people and everyone freezes.

Merrill lays a hand on Hawke’s shoulder. “It’s not worth it,” she says.

“It is,” Hawke says, giving her a look that melts for a second into heart-warming softness.

Heart-warming unless the observer is this particular Chantry sister, at least. “I thought the curfew began in the alienage an hour ago,” she says icily, glaring at Merrill. “What are _you_ doing outside the walls, child?”

“I’m not making any trouble,” Merrill murmurs.

The sister shakes her head. “Violation of the Viscount’s law is trouble,” she says, looking between Merrill and Fenris, “and it is illegal for elves to be outside the alienage at this time of night.”

“Are you,” Hawke says, slow and deliberate, “ _threatening_ my friends?”

“I am acting only in the best interests of the citizens of Kirkwall.”

Fenris surveys the tavern fast. Two other sisters, not paying any attention to the drama at this table as they speak to an old man at the bar, and three Templar guards, who _are_ paying attention. He catches Varric’s eye and the dwarf nods: he’s calculated the odds too. Sure, they can take the Templars down easily if push comes to shove, but the best bet for avoiding serious trouble is Fenris getting out of the tavern with Merrill and going to the alienage with her. They can lay low until tomorrow. It’s the wisest course right now.

But wisdom does not come easily to Hawke.

She leans forward, elbows on the table, still smiling. Her entire posture resembles at cat about to pounce and Fenris braces himself for a fight. “Yeah, well,” she says, “I’m pretty sure we know what’s in our best interests. And if you know what’s in _yours_ , you’ll walk away. _Now_.”

One of the Templars has his hand on the hilt of his sword.

“Hawke,” Fenris mutters.

“Time to be done, Hawke,” Isabela says, in a moment of rare wisdom.

The sister leans forward. “You’re coming _very_ close to violating not only the law of the city, but the will of the Maker,” she says to Hawke.

“The will of the Maker, or the will of Divine Renata I?”

Fenris turns to see Anders finally looking up from the bowl of porridge in front of him. He’s more than a little surprised to hear Anders speak at all. Merrill looks downright _shocked_. Fenris assumed that Anders would quietly enjoy watching the Chantry crack down on his elf companions. Apparently, that assumption was wrong.

The sister gives Anders an appraising look. “A scholar, I see,” she says, her tone laced with a certain amount of scorn.

“Of a sort,” Anders says. He smiles tersely. “I’m no specialist in Chantry history, but I certainly know enough to recognize that the ‘will of the Maker’ isn’t that, where elves are concerned.”

“You’re coming very close to heresy,” the sister warns.

“Merely making a historical observation,” Anders says. “Every student of the Dissonant Verse is aware that an _elf_ was the Champion of Andraste. It seems a little odd that elves are all but forgotten by the Chantry now, doesn’t it?”

The sister is unmoved. “That is not part of the Chant of Light,” she says. “It never happened.”

“Wrong, try again.” Anders folds his arms. “Canticle of Shartan. Can’t remember chapter and verse, but you get my drift. Struck from the record by a Divine conducting an Exalted March against, oh yes, _elves_.”

There’s a slightly breathless pause. Fenris isn’t even looking at the sister anymore, just at Anders. He has the hard look on his face that he gets when he starts getting really angry about mage oppression, color rising in his cheeks from passion, lips thin with barely contained fury. There’s a faint smell of lightning in the air, the scent of magic, just enough to hint that Justice may be preparing to come to the surface.

“Most interesting of all,” Anders says, conversational, “I’d remind you, sister, that the reasoning behind the striking of the Canticle and the removal of elves from the Chantry is still debated.”

“What is your point?” she snaps.

Anders doesn’t move. “Merely reminding you that the will of the Maker on this matter is in question.” He hesitates, just a little, and says quietly, “The oppression of elves stems from the fears of men, not the will of the Maker.”

Fenris feels the words like a punch to the jaw. That’s the manifesto. The _mage rights_ manifesto. He looks around to see if anyone else is reacting, but they’re not—clearly he’s still somehow the only one to have read anything Anders has written. Their attention is all on the Chantry sister, glaring at Anders like she’d set him on fire if she could.

“I see,” she says at last, in carefully measured tones, “that you will be unreceptive to hearing our message tonight. Have a care, scholar, that your studies do not take you to…troublesome places.”

And then she’s gone, turning and stalking away to her companions. They exchange a few words, the Templars visibly concerned. But after a moment, with one more venomous glance at the corner table, the sister and the rest make their exit.

Hawke turns to Anders with a flabbergasted expression. “By the Maker, where did you come up with _that_?”

“Yeah, Blondie, I didn’t take you for a choir boy.” Varric looks at Anders speculatively, then takes a long draft of ale.

Anders shrugs, leaning back, and the smell of lightning fades. He looks as easy and bright as ever, though the tension around his eyes lingers. “Ah, twenty years in the Circle, you’ll read anything you can get your hands on,” he says. “Boredom’s quite the inspiration!”

“Thank you,” Merrill says, and Anders actually _smiles_ at her in reply.

“Since when did you care about _elves_?” Fenris asks, staring at Anders. It brings the silence and tension crashing back down on the table.

The mage’s gaze slides away and he picks up his cards. “I’m not about to let the Chantry disrupt our game,” he says. “Talk about unjust…I believe we were about to ante up?”

Isabela breaks the tension with a laugh. “You sure you’re ready to lose again?”

Anders replies, but Fenris doesn’t pay attention to his words. He stares unseeing at the cards in his hand, trying to sort through everything that just happened. His question is still unanswered, but the lack of answer is itself an answer. Somewhere along the line, Anders’ opinions have changed. He’s started to care about things other than his cause.

The ground Fenris thought was stable shifted and he didn’t even notice. Now he has no idea where he’s standing. And he doesn’t like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angry academic Anders is my favorite headcanon. The Circle towers are just full of cooped-up nerds with nothing to do in their lives but research esoteric stuff and argue with each other about it. They have whole fraternities devoted to schools of magic, which write to each other and have political debates by mail, and mages transfer to other Circles to do research with other like-minded mages. This is all legitimately canon. 
> 
> You can’t tell me that Anders, argument-prone and opinionated as he is, growing up in that environment, didn’t end up being a disaster academic of the wildest sort!


	7. Chapter 7

Libertas is growing fast. The little kitten has run of the mansion, by now, though Fenris still keeps her in his room when he’s out for short periods. Longer trips require that someone look in on her—when Anders is about, he’s that someone, but otherwise Fenris prefers to simply ask Hawke’s mother.

Otherwise, he enjoys playing with her himself. Independent she may be, but she still likes sleeping in Fenris’ lap or chasing strings he pulls along the floor. Her kitten clumsiness is giving way to an elegant grace, only spoiled by her still-outsize paws. It gives him more smiles than he’s had in a while.

Of course, all this comes with regular continued visits for Anders. It gives Fenris more insight into the man than he ever really wanted. Most evenings, Anders arrives well after the sun has left the sky, looking extremely worn. He’s always out of mana entirely, and though he doesn’t speak of it, his chapped lips belie the fact that he’s barely even sat down to drink anything during the day.

In the interest of playing good host and out of some concern for Anders’ well-being, Fenris always offers something to drink. Anders is too proud to accept any offer of dinner (considering it an offer born of pity), but he’ll accept just about anything liquid. Wine, selected from the apparently infinite cellar of the mansion does the trick.

While playing with Libertas, Anders will talk a little, drink a little, and inevitably look far less harried than he did when he arrived. He seems happy, or at least what passes for happy where Anders is concerned. The growing soft spot Fenris is carrying around for Anders appreciates the change.

One late evening, just on the cusp of autumn, Anders shows up on the doorstep with a basket in hand. He looks a little less exhausted than usual. “I brought gifts for Libertas,” he announces, stepping over the threshold.

“She is a _cat_ ,” Fenris feels compelled to point out, following Anders into the main hall.

“No matter,” Anders says, waving a hand. He sits down, staff clattering beside him, and opens the basket, taking out a small array of items. A packet that Anders declares to be catswort—“I usually use it for sedative tisanes, but cats love it”—as well as a small packet of valerian, which has the same effect. A ball of yarn, apparently stuffed with catswort, made by a little girl who’d heard that Anders had a cat. A few feathers on a long string, tied together with a small silver bell, an acquisition from the market that Fenris suspects is more expensive than Anders lets on. Finally, there’s a paper-wrapped package with a very distinctive smell.

“Kaffas, mage, you brought _fish_ into my house?”

“For Libertas only,” Anders says, holding his hands up defensively. “It’s just a small piece of haddock, very fresh.”

Fenris pinches the bridge of his nose. “On occasion, I remember why I used to hate you,” he says conversationally.

Anders pauses in the act of dropping the yarn ball back into the basket. “Used to?” he asks, playing with the ball idly.

“Mm.” Fenris doesn’t dignify that with a greater response. He’s not even quite sure what he meant by it. “I’ll find the cat.”

And find her he does, lurking about the mantelpiece in the disused library. She meows at him crossly as he scoops her up, but he doesn’t get a claw for his efforts this time. Libertas’ tail twitches as he carries her back into the hall, where Anders waits.

Upon seeing Anders, Libertas nearly leaps out of Fenris’ arms to trot over and hop into Anders’ lap, purring up a storm. “Hello, you,” Anders practically croons, petting her all over. His smile lights up the dim room. She purrs aggressively and bumps into him with her small head.

“I believe she smells the fish.”

“ _Or_ she just likes me,” Anders says. He scratches under Libertas’ chin and offers her a sliver of haddock. Fenris just shakes his head as the cat practically inhales the offered fish, immediately pouncing on the rest of the small filet.

“You’d think I don’t feed her.”

Anders shrugs, drawing his hand over Libertas’ elegant, feathery tail. “Cats will be cats.”

Fenris sighs. He changes the subject, lest he start complaining about fish again. “You’re particularly energetic this evening.”

“Fewer patients than usual,” Anders says. “Didn’t have much writing, either.”

“Manifesto going poorly?”

The words slip out before he can think about them and Fenris winces. He didn’t speak particularly acerbically, but he sees Anders tense regardless. “Why do you care?” he snaps.

“I _don’t_ ,” Fenris says. He could scream at himself for rising to the bait.

Anders looks up at Fenris with a mix of frustration and defiance on his face. “Then why in the name of Andraste did you bother to _ask_?”

Fenris’ words get tangled up somewhere on the way to his mouth and he finds himself just standing there, jaw working, in dead silence. Anders stares at him, level and visibly simmering with irritation. In his lap, Libertas ignores the both of them, munching happily on fish.

Eventually Anders looks back down at the cat, slowly stroking her spine. “In answer to your question, it really is going poorly,” he mutters.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” Fenris says.

Anders shrugs. “You don’t care,” he says. The usual exhaustion laces his voice, as it hasn’t since he arrived. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t rather that thing never get written at all.”

“I would prefer it remain unpublished, yes,” Fenris says. He stops himself before he can say anything unwise, and finishes: “But it is a work important to you.”

Unsaid: _Which makes it important to me_.

There’s a beat of silence, broken only by the cat’s purring.

“Well,” Anders says softly, looking down at Libertas, “when you start writing your manifesto on the evils of Tevinter, I suppose I’ll feel the same way.”

A hundred quick retorts rise to Fenris’ mind, but he shoves them all away in sudden consternation. He doesn’t know what to say that isn’t…that isn’t just _mean_ , and he doesn’t _want_ to be cruel to Anders, so he doesn’t say anything at all.

He just flees.

By the time he gets up the courage to return, Anders is gone.


	8. Chapter 8

They don’t speak of that confusing incident afterwards. It’s easier to pretend it never happened, though they hold one another at arm’s length. Anders reduces the regularity of his visits; Fenris doesn’t bring it up. It’s better for both of them this way.

Some weeks later, Anders arrives damp, shivering in the cold night air on the doorstep. “What happened to you?” Fenris asks, looking the bedraggled mage up and down.

“The clinic flooded this morning,” Anders says. He shakes himself like a wet bird. 

That’s not surprising. Monsoon season is in full force in Kirkwall. Daily rainstorms pummel the city, dragging on for hours and flooding the streets. According to Merrill, the weaker buildings in the alienage are disintegrating under the pummeling force of rain and wind. Aveline has reduced the rate of guard patrols, in the interest of not getting her men washed into the harbor. Going outside is a business no one relishes. Even the most dedicated criminals let their business die down, preferring to stay dry and warm indoors.

Fenris, as he does every monsoon season, wishes he’d thought to patch up the roof this year.

“Libertas is by the fire,” Fenris says, directing Anders through the damp entry hall and into the arcade that leads to the kitchen, one of the only rooms in the mansion with a still-fully-functional roof. “We’ve been living in here since the rain started.”

“Maker, this is _wonderful_ ,” Anders says, hurrying to stand by the blaze roaring in the huge hearth. He holds out his hands with an expression of bliss.

Fenris sits down on the chair he dragged into the kitchen from the library. Libertas leaps from the floor into his lap, curling into a purring ball. “I presume it isn’t particularly warm in the clinic.”

Anders nods. “It’s nice to have windows in the clinic, but right now they’re letting in the _worst_ draft. Combine that with the water pouring into the sewers from the streets and you’ve got a real mess.”

“Can’t imagine how it smells,” Fenris says, shuddering a little.

“Not as terrible as everyone seems to imagine,” Anders says. He shrugs. “One thing you’ve got to say for the Imperium, they knew how to build a sewer. Everything flows down, though I don’t know where _to_ , and it’s mostly rainwater anyway. But it’s not handling the _deluge_ this year very well. Everything that gets washed away in Hightown comes down into Darktown. Good pickings for residents, but it’s backing up all the water channels.”

Fenris wrinkles his nose. “Disgusting.”

“I spent most of the day hauling water out of the clinic and trying to get things dry,” Anders says. He absently slides off his heavy mantle and coat, dropping them on a bench. “There’s no more standing water, at least.”

Gently, Fenris strokes Libertas’ back. “You should have asked us,” he says thoughtlessly. “I’m sure you could have used more hands.”

Anders gives him a sideways look, leaning on one arm against the mantlepiece. “It was no great trouble.”

“Still.”

He gets a half smile for that. Anders looks down into the fire, worry cutting stark lines into his face. “Everyone’s worried about another chokedamp outbreak, but I’m more worried about cholera.”

“About _what_?”

“Cholera. Rivaini disease, though they claim it spread from lands even further north. Spreads in places with bad living conditions and standing water. It can kill a healthy man within two hours, if conditions are right. Vomiting, thirst, weakness…other more unpleasant symptoms…”

Fenris shudders. He has a sudden and vivid memory of a disease that swept Tevinter many years ago. “The…blue death?”

Anders nods, looking extremely grim. “The sick turn blue, yes,” he says. “There was an outbreak when I was younger at the Ferelden Circle. Templars and mages alike. We only lost a few people—handy having a dozen spirit healers in residence at once, really—but it was horrible all the same. Can’t imagine what it would look like in Darktown.”

Silence descends after that. Fenris has nothing more to say on the subject; Anders seems disinclined to talk. He drums his fingers on the mantle, staring into the fire. While Libertas purrs, Fenris takes the time to stare at _him._

The firelight, Fenris decides, flatters Anders greatly. It hides the circles under his eyes, graciously smooths out the worn boniness of his face. It certainly does pleasing things to the color of his hair. The line of shadow emphasizes his height.

Fenris shakes himself. Aesthetic admiration for a companion is one thing, but staring like this isn’t something he cares to do. Fenris is more than aware that his companions are beautiful people. He appreciates Isabela’s figure, Merrill’s eyes, Hawke’s powerful shoulders, Varric’s face, Aveline’s hair…just to name a few notable characteristics. And he’s obviously not blind to Anders’ many charms. But aesthetic admiration is as far as Fenris ever goes.

“You didn’t come here to talk of epidemics,” Fenris says.

Anders looks down at him. “Didn’t I?” he asks, brows raised in challenge.

Damn the mage, tripping him up like this. What Fenris intended to say won’t make sense now. But Fenris can’t be irritated, not with that smile lurking at the corners of Anders’ mouth. “I know nothing of such things,” he says. “I can’t hold a conversation.”

“ _Perhaps_ I was looking to lecture,” Anders says. Playful, almost.

“You think _I_ would be a receptive audience for that?”

He’s gone and said the wrong thing again. Anders’ smile fades and his brow furrows. “My apologies,” he says. “I can—”

“Then again,” Fenris says, cutting him off a little desperately, “who else would sit and listen to your chatter? Who else has such a patient ear? No, I think you’ll have to speak to me, mage.”

Anders’ whole expression opens up again. “Far be it from me to turn away an audience, even a reluctant one,” he says, breaking into a rare brilliant grin.

Fenris’ heart does something extremely awkward in his chest at the sight. His breath catches for a second, just long enough to send a charge of energy rushing through him, as if in battle. His hand tightens so much on Libertas’ fur that she meows a loud protest, wriggling free and bounding away to sit, offended, by the fire.

“Everything all right?” Anders asks.

“…fine,” Fenris says. “She is dissatisfied with me. You pet her.”

Though Anders throws Fenris another speculative look, he doesn’t pry. He merely sits down cross-legged on the hearth, coaxing Libertas into his lap with soft words and a small treat of fish, which Fenris pointedly pretends not to notice when Anders produces the tiny packet from his pocket. For once, both of them seem to understand that the conversation needs to drop—though Fenris suspects that Anders would never be able to guess the reason.

“Anyway, about epidemics,” Anders starts, petting Libertas, “Kirkwall has a problem anyway, but Darktown is the worst place of all for sickness…”

While Anders speaks, Fenris makes the appropriate noises and even manages a few questions. But, in the main, he spends the rest of the evening abjectly failing at his new self-imposed task of _not_ looking at Anders. By the grace of the Maker, it appears that Anders doesn’t even notice.

At least, Fenris consoles himself as he paces the bedroom that night, it’s a nice view.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DISCLAIMER: THIS CHAPTER IS MOSTLY AN EXCUSE TO RANT ABOUT THE KIRKWALL SEWERS.
> 
> *deep breath*
> 
> Okay. Here’s the thing. There are two kinds of sewers: those that carry waste and those that carry stormwater. Waste sewers are generally too small to walk through, unless combined with a stormwater sewer, which is generally big enough to walk through. It’s pretty obvious, given their construction, that the Kirkwall sewers were built to carry stormwater as well as wastewater. 
> 
> Now, back in the day when the Imperium built the city, the sewers WERE designed to handle waste, this is true. Before they were sewers, they were also used as mineshafts and, apparently, there was some kind of weird blood magic function there too? I don’t know. 
> 
> No matter what, a hell of a long time has passed since then and it appears that there is no plumbing in modern Kirkwall that connects to these sewers. You only get a mention of a chamber pot in the game, which, okay, that’s fine, but hints that Kirkwall’s waste is at best flowing in an open sewer on the street, as would have been true in our world in cities like London (which didn’t get underground sewer systems until the late 1800s). It probably gets down into the sewers that make up Darktown, but nobody in Darktown is actually walking through the kind of human waste we tend to imagine. 
> 
> Basically, what I’m saying is that as fun as it is to call Anders the “sewer mage,” I PROMISE you the clinic doesn’t smell as bad as you expect. Probably not great, but the place also has pretty massive windows (airflow is good), and the sewers are almost certainly not as horrific as we’re imagining. 
> 
> Also I found out that there’s fucking _phosphorescent lichen_ down in Darktown and that is the COOLEST SHIT ever. I love it.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day-early chapter because tomorrow I have to be up and out the door before the sun rises, so I will have _no_ time to put anything up in the morning, and then I'll be traveling all day so no chance later either.
> 
> Enjoy!

An arrow whirrs by over his head. Fenris doesn’t flinch, focused on the burly man in front of him, barreling forward with a cudgel in hand. The man is roaring some battle cry but Fenris doesn’t care about the words. He centers himself and moves, faster than the attacker can follow, out to the side and around behind to drive his sword through the man’s back. He doesn’t even scream, just collapses in a heap.

Fenris turns, sword at the ready, to find the fighting already over. The archer is frozen in place, a statue of ice; the other slavers lie in pools of blood on the ground.

“Nice shot,” Hawke comments to Anders, twenty feet back, as she surveys the area.

“Thanks,” Anders says, closing the gap between his safe vantage and the battlefield. “Injured, Hawke?”

“He’d have hit you in the back if Anders didn’t take the shot, Broody,” Varric says, sotto voce, bending to pluck a crossbow quarrel from one of the slavers’ bodies.

Fenris gives Varric a sideways look as he begins to wipe down his sword. “Are you telling me to say thank you?”

“Just a suggestion,” Varric says, straightening up.

“Kaffas, Varric, I am not a _child_ ,” Fenris grumbles, and Varric lets it lie.

Fenris sends a surreptitious glance across the field to look at Anders. He’s busy healing Hawke, who looks to have taken a nasty hit to the shoulder; at some quip of Hawke’s, Anders laughs as he works. The midday sun makes the mage’s disheveled hair glint gold and Fenris rips his gaze away before he can start to stare again.

Six months. Six months since that strange, stormy night when Fenris realized that his feelings about Anders are infinitely more complicated than he ever imagined. He’s carried on as usual, despite feeling the need for a stiff drink whenever he even thinks about Anders.

It doesn’t seem that Anders has even noticed a change. Indeed, he’s as irascible as ever where Fenris is concerned. For all that they’ve gotten a sort of camaraderie between them, Anders certainly hasn’t become any less moody. They don’t _agree_ on Kirkwall’s mage problem, on Tevinter, on the Chantry, on Anders’…spirit.

Yet any verbal spats are tempered now, on Fenris’ side, by the recognition that Anders is a very _attractive_ man.

He does stop Anders as Hawke and Varric begin to loot the bodies. “Good shot,” he says stiffly.

“Thank you,” Anders says, dusting off ruffled feathers. He leans on his staff and looks down at Fenris. “You didn’t do too poorly yourself.”

Fenris looks around. Of ten bandits, Anders froze one, Varric shot three, and Hawke tore her way through four. Which means Fenris slew only two. “I’ve done better.”

“Come now,” Anders says bracingly, “if I hadn’t frozen the archer, I’m sure you’d have taken care of the problem.”

“I’m pretty sure you don’t need another pair of torn trousers, Hawke,” Varric says, interrupting the conversation.

Fenris turns to see Hawke in the middle of pulling the trousers right off a bandit. She tosses her hair. “Collecting them is a _calling_. You wouldn’t understand.”

“She has a mansion in Hightown,” Fenris mutters, dabbing a bit of blood off his gauntlet. “I don’t understand the trousers.”

“Right?” Anders straightens his coat. “Just one more thing about our fearless leader we’ll never truly comprehend, I suppose.”

The blood is still stuck there. Fenris studies it, tilting his hand back and forth, and absently licks the spot. Not blood, then, but a spot of rust. He’ll need to polish his armor properly when he gets home. “Kaffas.”

“Did you just _lick—_ ”

Fenris cuts off the disgusted words with a roll of his eyes. “It’s rust. Calm down before you bring Justice forward from sheer outrage at your vile companion.”

Anders scoffs. There’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “As if. If he came out every time I was outraged with you, he’d never leave. We expect it of you at this point.”

Mockingly, Fenris sketches a bow. “I _live_ to serve,” he drawls.

Suddenly serious, Anders shakes his head. “No, you don’t,” he says, and turns away before any more can be said. He raises his voice. “Hey! Varric! Got anything I can fix?”

“Nothing bad, Blondie,” Varric says with a shrug. His words are carefree, but Fenris doesn’t miss the speculative look Varric aims at him when Anders is fussing over a scrape on Varric’s cheek.

“Nice to see you two getting along,” Hawke says, as they reassemble into their marching order and get back on the trail. She tilts a grin at Fenris. “Really warms my heart.”

Fenris sighs. “We travel together every other day, Hawke,” he says. “You can’t expect me to constantly fight with him.”

Hawke shrugs. “You spent two and a half years doing just that,” she says.

After a few minutes, when Hawke isn’t looking, Fenris glances back at Anders. The mage is busy sorting through some kind of herb he’d picked up along the trail, gaze focused on his hands as they walk. He stumbles a little over a rock and yelps, nearly dropping the herbs. “Andraste’s tits!”

“Better watch where you’re going,” Varric advises.

“These are good for healing potions, which we are almost _out_ of,” Anders points out.

“Yeah, and you’ll use up the last of them breaking your face on a rock,” Hawke says.

Suitably chastened, Anders begins to put away his work. Without thinking, Fenris drops back behind Varric, locking into step with Anders and taking him by the elbow. “Keep working,” he mutters. When Anders looks at him askance, Fenris scowls. “I need those, if I’m to keep putting myself between you and every marauder on the Wounded Coast.”

“Selfish as ever, I see,” Anders says, tone distinctly snide, but Fenris doesn’t miss the way that Anders leans just a little into his touch.

The weight on his arm makes the lyrium brands there hurt, small shocks of pain making him wince as his arm jostles supporting the mage. Fenris doesn’t complain. He’s far more preoccupied with how lightheaded he feels, this close to Anders.

If only Fenris could rip out his own too-soft heart, then it wouldn’t be doing _backflips_ in his chest.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Multiple oblique and direct references to violence during sex (and hints at previous nonconsensual encounters), though no violence actually occurs between these two. Unless you count mild hair pulling.

It happens almost too fast for Fenris to follow. He comes to deliver a note from Hawke, reminding Anders of some commitment the next day, and the clinic is empty. Anders looks pleased to see Fenris, asks after Libertas’ health, asks after Fenris. They fall into conversation, words which Fenris won’t be able to remember later, and Fenris can’t quit looking at Anders’ mouth. Can’t stop himself from _wanting_ , in the dim light of the clinic, where there are no witnesses.

Anders notices.

Without any warning he drags Fenris forward, bending down into a searing hot kiss. It’s not tentative, not remotely shy. Every one of the reasons Fenris gave himself not to do this fly out of his head. He just _wants_. And—to stop himself from thinking about all the reasons that this is a terrible idea—he gives back as good as he gets.

He’s not _good_ at kissing, having had precisely no experience with it, but Anders _is_. He guides Fenris by touch into something less awkward though no less passionate. For once, Fenris is glad to let the mage lead. His head spins with confusion, thrill, pleasure. The attraction he’s been feeling—Anders returns it and more. It’s impossible. It’s _wonderful_.

“What are we doing,” Anders says, breathless, drawing back a little. Fenris has to look up at him, which is usually bothersome, but with his hands gripping Anders’ arms for balance like this, practically pressed against the mage, he certainly doesn’t mind.

“Something unwise,” Fenris says.

Anders breaks into a grin and Fenris’ heart does something strange and pleasant at the sight. “I like unwise,” he says.

In response, because he’s not sure what to say, Fenris pushes Anders back, following close behind. The backs of the mage’s knees hit the edge of a cot and he sits down with a grunt of surprise. Fenris steps between his legs, suddenly taller than Anders. He looks down at the mage and sees something almost gentle looking back. For a moment, Fenris hesitates.

Then Anders’ hands are on his shoulders, reeling him down into a kiss. It’s still messy, their noses bumping awkwardly before they find a workable rhythm again, but a little slower, a little less frantic. Anders tastes clean, of sage and salt. Given Anders’ general vanity, it shouldn’t surprise Fenris, but it somehow catches him off guard.

Fenris runs his gauntleted fingers through the mage’s hair. Strands catch, pull, and Anders makes a soft noise of _need_. Ungentle, wanting to hear that noise again, Fenris pulls Anders’ hair tie free. His fine hair falls around his face, framing it.

With something approaching a moan, Anders pulls Fenris closer. His hands are tight on Fenris’ shoulders. Fenris lets himself be pulled, deepening the kiss.

“Want this off,” Anders says hoarsely after a moment, drawing back a little. He taps on Fenris’ armor.

“No,” Fenris snaps, a shock of sudden fear crashing through him.

Anders looks at him, apparently calm except for the way his fingers dig into Fenris’ shoulders. A smile lingers on that wide, tempting mouth. “I don’t want you slicing into me with your claws.”

Fenris looks down at himself, at his armor. “You think this is going any further?” His voice is rough with arousal. Ordinarily he’d be ashamed, but now…

One long hand presses to Fenris’ chest. Fenris is very aware of how his traitorous heart pounds, as if he’s in battle. “I _want_ it to go further. If _you_ do…take those blasted claws off.”

Just a moment’s indecision later, Fenris pulls off his gauntlets with a few swift motions. By the time he drops them on Anders’ desk, the mage has gone to work on removing the straps holding Fenris’ breastplate. In return Fenris pulls away Anders’ feathered mantle and starts undoing the buckles of his heavy, quilted coat.

Neither of them are dressed well for a moment of passion like this.

Yet it doesn’t kill the mood. Instead Fenris finds himself simmering with anticipation, skin tingling with unfamiliar pleasure as Anders pulls his belts free and lets them fall to the floor. He particularly enjoys the moment of tossing Anders’ coat aside, seeing the way the mage turns red as Fenris slowly takes in the sight of him without his usual getup. It’s a sight he’s seen before, but never in this light.

He himself feels a hot flush spreading over his face when Anders strips him of his tunic, running warm hands over Fenris’ chest and shoulders almost worshipfully. With touch that lovely, Fenris can ignore the shocks of pain from every brush of Anders’ hands over the lyrium lines. The pain is worth it.

“Boots,” Fenris orders, stepping back just enough to let Anders get them off. Heat pools in his stomach as he watches Anders bend over, thoughts wildly running to how _else_ he might convince the mage to bend like that.

Then Anders is barefoot, sprawling backwards onto the cot. Just undershirt and trousers left. And his hand is outstretched, inviting.

Fenris takes Anders’ hand and lets himself be pulled forward.

He lands beside Anders, not on him. Laying like this, neither of them is really on the cot at all, propped perpendicular to the frame. It will do for now, especially considering that the straw mattress is barely wide enough for one man, let alone two. For just a second, barely two inches from Anders’ face, Fenris just stares.

“What are we doing?” Anders repeats.

“Something I’ve wanted to do for a while,” Fenris admits.

With surprising gentleness, Anders brushes aside Fenris’ hair, tucking loose strands behind his ear. “I hoped you were feeling the same way,” he says. “And yet half the time I still want to smack sense into your head…”

Fenris scowls a little at the reminder of their usual lives. “The feeling is mutual,” he mutters.

He pulls them around to right them on the cot, stretched out full length on it. Anders flat on his back, Fenris atop him. The cot is so small that Anders has to bend his legs so as not to hang off the end of it, and Fenris neatly fits right between his legs.

This close, Fenris feels how Anders simply _radiates_ heat. He smells herbal, and faintly of lightning. That last, a too-familiar herald of magic, should scare Fenris. It should.

It doesn’t.

Nor does Anders’ hand, holding Fenris’ cheek with far too much care. Fenris should think of violence, of fire and death, but all he can think of is the way that this hand pets cats or heals a sick child. He finds himself pressing into Anders’ touch, hungry for more.

Anders kisses him again and Fenris pushes back, coaxing Anders’ mouth open. Anders makes such _sounds_ in the kiss, desperate and passionate. His other arm slides around Fenris, pressing him in. Fenris tangles his hands in Anders’ hair, stroking and lightly pulling.

Slowly, Ander’s hand wanders down Fenris’ spine. There are twinges of pain when Anders touches the lyrium brands wrapping around Fenris’ back, but nothing so terrible that Fenris wants to move away. Fenris shivers in the wake of the touch, suppressing noises that sound beautiful when Anders makes them and would be embarrassing coming from his mouth. He breaks the kiss to bite his lip hard, feeling himself _tremble_.

“Cold?” Anders breathes, lips brushing Fenris’ cheek.

“Don’t tease me.” Fenris opens his eyes to see Anders looking back, eyes a startlingly deep amber in the torchlit clinic.

Anders’s gaze is steady. “I’m not,” he says. “It’s cold down here.”

There are so many ridiculous romantic lines Fenris could spout— _you’re keeping me warm, you’re too hot for me to feel cold, as long as you’re here I could never be_ —but he doesn’t. They sound too much like Varric and not enough like him. “It is,” he says.

“Difficulties of Darktown,” Anders says, his hand pressed to Fenris’ lower back, just above the waistband of his leggings. His fingertips dance along the waistband, but no further. “Not that your mansion is much better.”

“It really isn’t,” Fenris agrees, gifting Anders half a smile. 

He becomes aware that the heat of the moment has faded. The furious passion is past, and the heat in Fenris’ stomach has migrated up into his chest. Just behind his breastbone.

For just a moment, silence reigns. Fenris finds himself idly running his fingers through Ander’s hair, feeling the mage relax under him. Anders is still almost petting him, but it’s good. It's more than physical pleasure. It's a gesture of something...more.

Just when Fenris is about to lean in for another kiss, Anders speaks. “I expected this to be more violent,” he says. There’s a rueful note in his voice that makes Fenris uncomfortable. “Some biting, maybe. Getting slapped around a little.”

Fenris shifts a little, sudden tension coiling around his spine. The warmth is replaced by a harsh, creeping chill. “Is that what you _want_ from me, mage?”

“Would it kill you to call me by my name?” Anders says, any happiness dropping from his face. “And no. I don’t think I want that, _thank_ you.”

“But you’d have accepted it if I’d…” Fenris pauses. _Something_ claws in his throat, angry and hurt as a kicked street cat. Offense at Anders’ low opinion, perhaps. Or something else he doesn’t want to think about. Ever.

Anders shrugs one shoulder, loose and careless. “It wouldn’t be the first time. It can even be fun, with the right partner.”

“No,” Fenris says. “Anders. _No_.”

He’s on his feet, then, with no memory of moving. He nearly trips over his discarded armor, heel striking the edge of the breastplate and sending him staggering into the desk. Fenris barely catches himself, staring at Anders, now propped on one elbow.

“Fenris—”

“We will not speak of this again,” Fenris snaps. He snatches up his tunic and yanks it over his head, hands shaking too much to straighten it.

Anders flinches. “I—”

“If that is your opinion of me, then there is no more to be said on the subject.”

“It’s _not_ my opinion of you,” Anders says, swinging himself upright and folding his arms. He glares down at Fenris.

Fenris clenches his fists at his side. He feels—small, like this, weak, exposed. It nauseates him. “Is it what you want from me? Venhedis, is it what you want to _do_ to me?”

“Maker’s breath!” Anders takes one step forward and Fenris backs straight into the desk. His heart hammers in his chest. Anders looks enraged. Fenris doesn't have a way to defend himself. His sword is too far away. “This, this is why I kept telling myself you were a bad idea!”

“Likewise,” Fenris snarls. He seeks refuge in anger but more words won’t come. He’s lightheaded, legs shaking. Lyrium brands flare. The smell of lightning fills the air. Anders is _far_ too tall, looming over Fenris the way that…

Something must show on Fenris’ face because Anders hesitates. “I thought…”

“If you’d _thought_ , you wouldn’t have kissed me.”

Fenris hears his voice _crack_. Anders is just staring at him, looking suddenly more like a lost puppy than an infuriated mage. It’s too much. His body is trembling too hard to hold him up, the words to explain himself won't come, and Fenris doesn’t know what to do except _run_.

So he does.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stuck these on the beginning of this chapter because they didn’t seem to fit the end of last chapter.
> 
> Contrary to popular visions, medieval people—whose diets generally lacked the refined sugar that oral bacteria thrive on—were relatively unlikely to have rotting teeth. That issue didn’t become a real Thing until sugar in diets became widespread, much later on. (Due to grain-heavy, unrefined diets, however, people’s teeth did get pretty worn down!) Having clean teeth and fresh breath was very much socially encouraged. Can’t really imagine Thedas being much different!
> 
> So what did you use, without minty fresh toothpaste? Well, the concoction Anders uses—burned sage and salt—was a common travel “toothpaste” in medieval times. People also used plain herbal rubs, abrasive powders (which included stones like pumice), walnut shells, wine rinses, and more to keep teeth clean and white, and to freshen the breath. I really, really, REALLY do not imagine Anders (a freaking DOCTOR) letting his oral hygiene go. Also, as Fenris says, he does have quite the vain streak…so bad teeth would be right out.

He left all his armor _and_ his sword in Anders’ clinic.

Fenris paces the mansion for an hour, debating whether to go back for the items or not. His hands won’t stop _shaking_ , frustrating in and of itself; when he thinks of Anders, the shaking gets much worse. Eventually he decides that someone will take pity on him and bring his arms and armor to him. It only stands to reason. They’ll need him sooner or later and he’s no good without a sword.

In the meanwhile, he locks himself in his bedroom, Libertas on his lap. The cat, serene, doesn’t even seem to realize anything is wrong. She sits on him primly and cleans her paws and whiskers, ignoring his tense silence. Fenris scratches her back, but she ignores that except to wriggle around for the spot she really wants him to pet.

His head spins, not from pleasure but from something else. Thoughts of other hands, of crueler touch, fill his mind. His skin _hurts_ , lyrium searing hot, and even his usual tricks don’t help him. He would drink, but tonight he senses that doing that would be a mistake.

Night has fallen and the mansion is still dark. Fenris hasn’t gotten up to light a fire. It feels a little like his chest has caved in, like his heart has been ripped out, but he doesn’t care at all to examine the feeling. He just sits in the dark, the small warm weight of Libertas on his lap, and waits for nothing to happen.

The silence of the mansion breaks to the sound of a distant knock. Fenris’ ears twitch involuntarily at the sound. “It’ll be Hawke,” he mutters to Libertas, “here to return my sword and pry…”

His joints are stiff when he gets up, from sitting for so long, and he stretches as he walks to work it out. The knock wasn’t on the front door, but on the back door. Whoever’s here doesn’t want to be seen by late-night passerby. Perhaps it isn’t Hawke. Isabela, maybe?

Fenris opens the door and feels the flagstone under his feet drop away into the void. Anders stands there, shoulders bowed, feather mantle and staff missing, Fenris’ gear neatly bundled in his arms. The mage doesn’t look directly at him as he holds out his burden.

“You need them,” Anders says.

Numbly, Fenris takes his gear. The familiar weight of it all in his arms is reassuring. He hugs it to himself. His mouth is too dry to speak.

“I won’t…bother you.” Anders looks down, nothing but a shadow in the overgrown back garden behind the mansion. “It was a mistake. I don’t…Fenris, I don’t want to cause you pain.”

“I know,” Fenris says. “And…I wish the same.”

Anders barks out a humorless laugh. “Pair of fools, we are,” he says. His arms are folded tight across his chest, as though he’s holding himself together. “Look, I’ll make myself scarce. Back to business, no more fraternization. Strictly professional. We can go back to fighting at every turn. It’ll be easier.”

Fenris wants to object, but he’s not sure how to voice it. “Mage…”

“Enough,” Anders says softly, sounding so tired.

It’s all wrong, everything is wrong. Fenris wants back the quiet intimacy in those moments before he panicked, Anders’ warmth and kindness surrounding him. He doesn’t know what to say, and so he stands there in stark silence.

He’s saved by a querulous meow from around his ankles as Libertas makes her appearance. She winds around his legs and then around Anders’, purring and rubbing her cheek on Anders’ shin.

“You can’t leave Libertas alone,” Fenris says. Croaks, more like.

“She’s got you,” Anders says.

“She’d miss you.”

Anders makes a small, choked sound. “Yes, well,” he says, “ _you’ll_ be here.”

Fenris has no idea how to bridge the gulf opening between them. Is it his cue to apologize? To beg forgiveness for his panic? Should he try to explain the things he himself doesn’t entirely understand?

Again, Libertas saves him. She meows loudly and rises on her hind legs, pawing at the hem of Anders’ coat, the way she always does when she wants to be picked up. He crouches and scoops the cat into his arms, holding her close.

“We can be civil for her,” Fenris says quietly. “She is your cat, too.”

“That’s something, at least,” Anders says.

Between them, Libertas purrs, the only sound in the silence of the Kirkwall night.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Early chapter because yet again my Saturday morning is taken up with early business. 
> 
> This is where that "canon-typical violence" tag comes in. Fenris is a violent man in a violent profession.

The battle rages across Kirkwall.

Nobles have been rounded up, dragged to the Viscount’s Keep, now under siege by every warrior in the city. Or, well, it _should_ be under siege.

“What do you _mean_ , Meredith won’t fight?” Merrill cries, throwing up her hands.

Hawke snarls. “As long as Orsino is here, she won’t make a move to the Keep. They’re just standing back there _bickering_!”

“They’ll execute everyone inside if we don’t do something,” Merrill says.

“There aren’t enough of us to storm the Keep,” Varric says.

“Do you think I don’t _know_ that?” Hawke demands.

Shouts ring out at the wall of the Keep. Aveline is out there, fighting beside her men; Isabela is, of course, nowhere to be found. The clash of swords and the war cries of the Qunari resound in the streets nearby. In their shelter between two buildings, close to the foot of the Keep, they’re out of sight of the invaders. It’s a respite, though not for long.

Fenris barely listens to any of it. He has very little to say just now. He’ll follow Hawke. He preoccupies himself with dabbing the blood from his shoulder where a lucky Qunari hit him. The sting of it has faded into a searing ache that makes the weight of his sword feel far too great.

“Let me heal that,” Anders says in a low voice, stepping close.

“I’m fine,” Fenris says. After the last time Anders touched him, Fenris would rather bleed and take a potion. Even now, he can’t shake the memories tangled up with their last encounter. He doesn’t have time to be distracted now.

Anders shakes his head. Fenris decides not to object to the clinical touch as Anders examines his shoulder. The mage’s hands tremble slightly, a side effect of drinking too many lyrium potions in the last few hours. “This is _disabling_ , Fenris. A potion won’t do the job. You won’t be able to lift your sword for long, if at all.”

“Let him fix it,” Hawke says.

Fenris winces: he hadn’t realized she was listening. At her word, as he always does, he obeys. He looks away as Anders touches the wound, the warm feeling of healing magic seeping through his arm. The lyrium lines tingle, as they always do in proximity to magic, but it’s not terrible against the sudden relief from the wound. “Thank you,” he mutters, when Anders’ hands fall away. He flexes his arm a little: though an ache remains, Fenris will certainly be able to fight.

“No trouble,” Anders says. He turns away. “It’s no surprise Meredith won’t help.”

“You’d think she could get past the whole mage thing when all of Kirkwall is at stake,” Varric mutters, with a roll of his eyes.

“Amazing what prejudice can do,” Anders says, aiming a look at Fenris.

Fenris reminds himself that now is not the time to say anything to Anders. They don’t have time for distraction. Instead, he looks at Hawke. “We have no time to delay,” he says. “We act now, or we sacrifice Kirkwall.”

Hawke looks around at them. “Right,” she says. “Keep your heads. Enough of us to storm the Keep or not, the only way in is through the front gate.”

“We’ve fought our way through all the rest of the Qunari, I don’t see why this is going to be any different,” Merrill says, examining her slashed palms. Her sweet smile has a distinctly cocky attitude. It appears she’s learning from Hawke.

“ _Please_ stay close enough that I can stop you from dying,” Anders says with an aggravated sigh.

Varric grins, Bianca resting on his shoulder at a jaunty angle. “Worried about us, Blondie?”

“You’re a bunch of reckless fools, and you’re my friends. Of course I’m worried.” Anders shakes his head. There’s a splash of blood on his cheek; Fenris is seized with the sudden desire to wipe it off. He restrains himself.

“Heartwarming as all of this is,” Hawke says, pressing a bloody kiss to Merrill’s cheek, “I think we’d better get going before they execute every noble in the Keep.”

Fenris leads the charge up to the Keep. His lyrium burns so hot it hurts. Half of the Qunari don’t know what hit them. They die screaming. He feels his mouth stretching into a vicious rictus grin.

Hawke isn’t far behind. He catches glimpses of her brutal attacks when he looks back, of the torn corpses she leaves behind. Nobody should really be able to swing a greatsword that fast, but Hawke manages it. Merrill is at her side, clad in armor of stone, lightning raging around her.

Varric and Anders bring up the rear. Varric fires crossbow bolts faster than should be possible. Anders, meanwhile, alternates between waves of healing energy and blasts of icy cold. Varric’s laughter echoes through the streets over the dying howls of their foes. For all that his mana should be impossibly low by now, Anders shows no signs of slowing down, either.

The street turns a corner into the open plaza before the Keep. Above them the walls stand tall and proud, but the doors are barred. A few city guards fall before a squad of Qunari warriors, the survivors fleeing back into the streets. On the other side of the plaza, in a defensive position near a wall, Fenris spots a pair of chained Saarebas, magic swirling around their hands. Their keeper blocks the way, even as one of the mages hurls a blast of lightning that incinerates a guard where he stands.

“Get them!” Hawke yells, hurtling past Fenris toward the warriors.

“With pleasure,” Fenris growls.

He aims for the keeper, a Qunari nearly twice his height. The keeper roars and rushes forward, sword high. Their blades meet. Fenris should have stopped the Qunari in his tracks, but he’s a bit too short. He staggers. Their blades screech as the Qunari pushes him back.

Fenris may be strong, but one hit from this titan would tear him in two. He steps out of the way of a blow that would have shattered his skull and skips back a step, intending to circle around behind.

But the keeper turns out to be fast. He swings his sword and Fenris ducks before he can be decapitated. Another heavy strike, a chop downward that Fenris barely manages to block. He’s fighting on his heels now, the keeper closing in to force Fenris away from his charges.

A wolfish grin splits the keeper’s face. Overconfident in his ability, he swings too wide and Fenris steps in. Not with his sword—his hand shimmers blue and he punches _straight_ into the Qunari’s chest.

The keeper screams. Blood erupts in a spray across Fenris’ face as he rips his hand back, the keeper’s beating heart caught in his gauntlet. The Qunari collapses. Fenris drops the heart and takes up his sword again.

Both Saarebas, startled, turn their attention to him. Fenris closes with one before either can cast a spell, swinging his sword in a great arc that opens one of the mages straight across the belly. The Saarebas howls in agony, dropping to his knees and holding his guts in with both hands.

The other manages to hurl a blast of lightning that hits Fenris straight in the chest. His body locks up for a moment, muscles spasming, but he manages to hold onto his sword. As the pain dissipates, Fenris doesn’t bother trying to close with the second mage. He seizes the chain connecting the two Saarebas and yanks it forward, pulling the survivor off his feet and straight into the point of Fenris’ sword.

Both mages are down now, but there’s no time to rest. Fenris turns and runs for the stairs that lead up to the Keep’s doors. He almost slips on the gore-soaked cobblestones beneath his feet.

A pair of archers stand at the landing, firing down, and one of their arrows lands a lucky hit on Fenris’ leg. Fenris stumbles but doesn’t have time to pause. With a yell of pain he rips the arrow free, blood gushing down his leg, and a split second later he feels a wash of healing magic. Anders. Fenris glances over his shoulder, letting his sword drop for a moment, and throws a salute the mage’s way.

“Forget me, get up there!” Anders shouts, pointing up the stairs. Another arrow whistles by Fenris’ head, nearly taking off his ear.

“Go, go, go!” Hawke shouts, running across the square to join him.

Together they sprint up the stairs. As Fenris crests the landing he locks blades with another huge Qunari, bearing down on him with a fearsome battle cry. He’s already inside the Qunari’s guard, which makes it simple to step to the side and trip the warrior. He topples down the steps, arms windmilling and sword clanging to the ground, and Fenris takes the chance to skewer him through the back.

By the time he turns around, Hawke has already cleaned up the archers. She kicks a body with a snarl and looks up at the doors. “Varric!”

“Here,” Varric says, coming up beside her. “Locked?”

“Get it done,” Hawke says. She steps back and looks them over as Varric gets to work on the doors. “Everyone intact?”

“Your paramour is not.” Anders looks at Hawke, then back at Merrill. He has Merrill’s hands in his, healing the deep gashes on her palms. “Can you please, if you insist on hacking yourself to pieces for demons to eat, do it somewhere _other_ than your hands?”

She rolls her eyes, but smiles. “I’m fine, silly. I know what I’m doing.”

“Debatable,” Fenris mutters. Merrill gives him an irritated look, and Fenris finishes: “You’re a mage, I don’t know what business you have charging into melee.”

“I have every business!” Merrill says, almost laughing, but before the banter can continue the lock thunks open and Varric steps back.

“Your door, messere,” Varric says with a mocking bow.

Hawke grins and strides through the doors into the Keep. Fenris follows, feeling an odd warm glow of companionship despite the bloody footprints he leaves in his wake. There really isn’t anything like a full-scale invasion to bring people together.

The Viscount’s Keep is hauntingly empty, save for the screams and shouts resounding from the throne room. A few well-armed Qunari are stationed in the halls; Fenris and Hawke dispatch them quickly enough. The mages are both low on mana after the charge through the city and Varric is running out of crossbow bolts. “Save your resources for when we find the Arishok,” Hawke says grimly when Merrill asks.

By the time that they arrive in the throne room, the Viscount’s head is rolling across the floor, ending its arc at Hawke’s feet.

Fenris misses the talk between Hawke and the Arishok. He’s too busy calculating their odds. A dozen Qunari warriors, stronger and better-armed than any they’ve seen so far; a whole group of heavily-armored Saarebas and their keepers; and, of course, the Arishok himself, whose stature puts Hawke—already tall and burly by human standards—to shame.

If it comes to a fight here in the throne room, Fenris is unsure of their victory. With their mages nearly out of the fight, Varric almost out of ammunition, and their warriors exhausted, taking on these Qunari would be suicidal.

Still, he’s willing to try.

And then Isabela arrives, in the nick of time, with the Tome of Koslun under one arm. Merrill cheers to see her, Varric joins in, and even Fenris manages a smile—

—which is when everything goes wrong.

“Take her,” Hawke says, stepping back and giving Isabela a shove forward.

“Hawke!” Isabela shouts, staggering.

Anders looks at Fenris, wild-eyed. “We have to stop this.”

“She brought this on herself,” Fenris says, but the words feel wrong in his mouth. “There are consequences for her actions.”

Isabela drops the Tome of Koslun on the floor at the Arishok’s feet. “You’re going to have to kill me before I let you take me,” she spits. Her hand rests on the hilt of her sword.

Merrill, after a pleading look at Fenris, darts forward and presses a hand to Hawke’s shoulder. “Please,” she says. “Don’t do this.”

“It’s her fault Kirkwall is burning,” Hawke says coldly.

Varric looks up at Fenris. “I don’t like this,” he mutters.

It seems they’re all looking to him, for some obscure reason. Fenris watches Hawke. He doesn’t know what to do. If they convince Hawke not to hand Isabela over, then the Qunari will attack and likely slaughter them all. Yet Isabela is his friend…

Anders steps in close and speaks low, right in Fenris’ ear. “Do you really think that forcible conversion to the Qun is any different than the re-education of escaped slaves in the Imperium?”

There are so _many_ things wrong with that statement that Fenris has to force down the desire to rip the mage in half right then and there. But the thought of proud Isabela in chains, forced to bend the knee to those she does not follow, perhaps killed for her independence—a nauseating mirror image of things he himself has seen, experienced—

“Hawke, _stop this_ ,” Fenris growls.

“Not you too!” Hawke turns a betrayed expression on him.

“She should face some penalty for her actions, be punished according to the laws of Kirkwall,” he says, “but this is a betrayal of everything we have been fighting to protect.”

“Make your decision,” the Arishok rumbles.

Hawke looks around at them all. She must not like what she sees because she scowls, ugly, and turns back to the Arishok. “Since my _dear_ friends disapprove, I’m going to have to rescind my offer,” she says. Her voice drips with rage. “No deal. No Isabela.”

“Then we will seek our recompense in the only proper way,” the Arishok says. He pulls his weapons free and takes one heavy step forward.

Fenris charges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit where Fenris grabs the chain and uses it to stab the Saarebas was my beta reader’s idea. She, who is not a Dragon Age fan, said Fenris reminded her of Kratos from God of War and wanted me to include that bit.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for implied abortion and discussion of same in the notes.

Meredith proclaims Hawke as the Champion of Kirkwall, which is as it should be. What were the other choices? A dwarf who refuses honors, an elven apostate blood mage, an apostate abomination, the woman who started the Qunari invasion…or Fenris. None so striking as Hawke in her shining armor with her charming smile, the heir to a noble title, everything that the city of Kirkwall should aspire to be.

Besides, Hawke struck the killing blow against the Arishok. It’s a well-deserved title.

Yet it feels so hollow to Fenris.

He hasn’t seen any of his companions, save Aveline, in the two weeks since they parted ways on the stairs of the Viscount’s Keep. Hawke hadn’t exactly said “get out of my sight,” but she hadn’t had many kinder words for them either. Fenris is fine with that: he doesn’t want to see them either.

Aveline’s reports say that Isabela has vanished from Kirkwall, that Merrill hasn’t been seen at the Hawke estate, that Varric has holed up in his room and refused all company, that Anders has made it clear that he is _unavailable_ to help with anything other than his own projects.

Fenris has taken several jobs with Aveline in the last fortnight. It’s all still chaos in Kirkwall, as the unscrupulous take their chances in the wake of the invasion to enact their own plans. Young healthy citizens walking alone are a target for the slavers who’ve descended like vultures on the city; anyone who looks to have a single copper in their purse is a target for cutpurses or more brutal thieves. Fenris’ sword is a great asset to the city guard.

At night, though, there is nothing else to distract him. Fenris is left to his own devices. Those devices are, usually, drinking until the pain of his body and mind abates and the visions stop dancing in front of his eyes.

The image of Isabela among the Qunari has gotten tangled up with his own painful memories—of the days after Danarius took him back from Seheron, especially. Chains. Agony. Guilt and shame. These memories Fenris will not tolerate.

At least for a while, the wine lets him forget again.

He blames Anders for this. The mage’s words, so cleverly calculated to force Fenris’ hand, burn somewhere just under his ribs and won’t _stop_. He can forget when he’s slashing his way through slavers in Lowtown, but alone in the mansion at night, he can’t.

The only company he keeps is Libertas, still blissfully ignorant of everything happening around her. She is only concerned with being fed (at her own idiosyncratic times), with being entertained (on her terms, of course), and with being petted (until she gets bored). A simple creature. Fenris envies her.

Of course the solitude doesn’t last.

When the knock on the back door resounds through the mansion at nearly midnight, Fenris thinks about ignoring it. He _could_. No one would be the wiser.

He opens the back door to find Anders waiting there.

Although Fenris’ first instinct is to immediately shut the door, he is not quite _that_ juvenile.

“What.”

“I…was hoping to see the cat,” Anders says, and it’s exactly that hopeful tone of voice, in the face of everything says hope should be _dead_ , that got Fenris into trouble the first time.

“You think, after what you said, I’d let you in?” Fenris growls.

Anders leans heavily on his staff. “I’ve said worse,” he says. His tone isn’t self-deprecating, but rather matter-of-fact.

Fenris, grudgingly, steps back to admit Anders to the mansion.

The mage carries himself like he believes he’s going to be struck at any moment. Fenris recalls the first time this happened—Anders coming to see the cat—and recognizes that this is the exact same posture. He knows Anders well enough now to see that Anders is really afraid. Afraid of _Fenris_. It makes his stomach drop a little to see that.

He reminds himself that he’s angry at the mage, and should not be swayed.

Libertas makes her imperious entrance, making a stately pace to get to Anders, where she promptly makes a kittenish fool of herself by rolling around and mewing for attention. Anders sets his staff down and crouches, stroking her belly playfully and ignoring the little swats she aims at him. “Have you been good for your angry elf, dear?” he asks, tone sweet and pointed.

“I am standing _right here_ ,” Fenris objects.

Anders ignores him thoroughly. He coos inanely at Libertas while Fenris stands over him, stuck somewhere between confused and furious. Anders is acting like nothing happened when _everything_ has happened. Fenris doesn’t know where to begin to address it.

“Mage,” Fenris starts, “we need to talk.”

“An extremely wide variety of people have tried my patience today, _elf_ ,” Anders says. He looks up at Fenris, scowling. “Would you like to risk joining their ranks?”

Against his will, Fenris is intrigued. “Did the employees of the Blooming Rose put in a mass appearance again?”

“No, they didn’t, but I swear the entire rest of the city did.” Anders sits back on his heels and ticks off people on his fingers. “I had four patients throw up on me after coming down with influenza, which, it’s lovely to know _that’s_ rampaging through Darktown already. A polite young man who suffers from some particularly terrible visions tried to stab me _with my own staff_. A wildly unpleasant woman spent half an hour berating me for providing pennyroyal tea to her daughter. I had to ask a passing pair of Carta thugs to help me eject her! An elderly man sleeping off too much blood lotus root kept waking up and singing Orlesian drinking songs inappropriate for anyone’s ears, so I got another scolding by an unhappy parent. I closed out the day by dealing with a man whose leg is _rotting off_ , but despite coming to the Maker-damned clinic for my help, refused treatment and _limped right back out the door_!”

By the time he finishes speaking, Libertas has apparently decided that Anders is too distracted to sufficiently pet her. She trots away into the mansion, vanishing in the gloom. Anders watches her go with a woeful expression that tugs on Fenris’ traitorous heartstrings.

Fenris is aware that Anders has a difficult job, but never really asked for details. Hearing that litany, Fenris decides that he’d prefer to fight monsters to the death rather than spend a day working in the clinic. “I am…extremely sorry to hear all of this,” he says.

Anders rubs his face with one hand. “Sometimes I genuinely wonder how much one man can do to heal all of this,” he says, gesturing vaguely around as if to indicate Kirkwall at large.

“You’re doing more than most,” Fenris says, a little stiffly. He hopes it comes across as genuinely as he means it to.

He gets a sad, lopsided smile in return. “I’m not doing half enough,” Anders says. He looks away and sighs. “But you’re not here to listen to me whining. I should go. It’s been busy enough today that I should light the lantern again, more people will need help…”

“Wait,” Fenris says as Anders climbs to his feet. “Mage. You need to rest.”

“Not really,” Anders says. His expression is wan. It’s dim in the hallway, but Fenris can still see the dark circles etched under his eyes. “Justice helps a lot.”

“…surely even your demon can’t approve of you running yourself ragged this way.”

Anders shrugs. “He doesn’t. But it’s necessary, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think even _you_ can run a revolution without sleep.”

“I’m just _full_ of surprises,” Anders says. “Besides, Maker knows that _Hawke_ won’t do anything to help the city, so someone has to.”

Fenris rocks back on his heels. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t think any of us knew Hawke quite as well as we thought,” Anders says. He sighs, leaning heavily on his staff. “I’d hoped that if she rose in status, she’d help my cause. Really, at this point, I’d settle for _anyone’s_ cause. But she’s locked herself away in Hightown and no one’s heard from her in days.”

“She will be back,” Fenris says with a surety he doesn’t entirely feel. “We upset her. She has new duties to adjust to.”

“I hope you’re right, Fenris.” Anders looks past Fenris, mouth set unhappily, as if he’s looking at something Fenris can’t see. 

Fenris, absurdly, wants to comfort the mage. He doesn’t know how. So when Anders turns and slips out the back door, Fenris doesn’t stop him. He just watches Anders go, and worries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The herb pennyroyal has historically been used as an abortifacient, prescribed by physicians and midwives in Europe from at least ancient Greece, if not earlier. I do feel the need to append the warning label here: there are several reported cases in which individuals who took pennyroyal for this purpose died of pennyroyal toxicity or related causes. If you find yourself in a position to need an abortion and it is possible for you, please seek professional medical care for the procedure.
> 
> Yes, I know Justice hasn’t appeared much in this story. But he will be making more of an appearance soon! In a hopefully pleasing capacity!


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who read the original and notice the change: I edited this after the release of Blue Wraith and finding out that Fenris is a HUGE dog person. We need more of that in our lives.

Some of Fenris’ predictions come true. Hawke comes around after a few weeks, having apparently forgotten the disaster in the throne room. She claims that she was overburdened by her new duties as Champion, bemoaning the sad and sorry fates of those who gain noble titles. When Fenris inquires as to whether she is still angry with them, she throws an arm around his shoulder with a laugh: “It’s all in the past, friend!”

They resume Wicked Grace nights after some wheedling from Hawke. It doesn’t take much, really, not when her sweet smile reminds them all of the good times in the past. Varric reclaims their table in the corner and everything picks up as if they never left off.

Things have even been patched up between Hawke and Merrill. They’ve moved in together. Despite his permanent misgivings about Merrill’s conduct, Fenris finds himself happy for her. She wears white now at Hawke’s request, and smiles more than she ever did.

She and Hawke are _disgustingly_ affectionate in public, always to a chorus of cheers and boos.

Even Isabela returns to Kirkwall, though she holds Hawke at arm’s length. Fenris does not blame her in the slightest. Still, he’s happy to have her back, cheating at cards and killing bandits at his side.

With life in Kirkwall as settled as it ever is, Fenris is thinking of looking for a different place of residence. He hasn’t even begun to look, though, when Hawke turns up at the mansion with the deed to the property in her hands. He studies it for a moment, then looks at her, a little astounded.

“It’s yours for good now, and you can stop skulking around in the dark,” she says, and smiles awkwardly. “Don’t ask how I got that.”

Fenris smiles in return. “I admit that I’m unsure of what to do with this, now that I have it,” he says, looking around at the front hall.

“Tell you what: Merrill and I will throw our next party in your mansion, so we can scandalize your new neighbors with all the corpses.”

“Please let that go. They’ve been gone for _years_ , Hawke,” Fenris says with a sigh.

Hawke just winks, her jaunty worldliness a little at odds with the Chantry symbol hanging from the pendant she wears now. It’s a move that surely pleases Knight-Commander Meredith, and makes Anders scowl every time he sees her. “This is _Kirkwall_. I’m sure we can find more if we look.”

At Fenris’ exasperated sigh, Hawke departs laughing, strolling away toward her estate. Fenris closes the door behind her and turns to look around at the surroundings. _His_ mansion now, something no one can take from him. The thought of it pleases him greatly.

With the deed to the mansion in hand, Fenris decides to put his thoughts of a different residence away for now. The mansion is…almost homely, now that he feels free to fully occupy all its rooms rather than only entering a few. It’s novel to be able to light fires without drawing the curtains, to go in and out through the front instead of the back door, to not worry that anyone will call the city guard or worse on him. The residents of Hightown give him cold looks, but Kirkwall has never claimed to be friendly to elves.

He relishes inviting his friends over. There are no corpses in the front hall, thank you very much, which his friends see fit to comment on every time they enter. Fenris endures their teasing patiently. He likes to have Isabela flitting around commenting on the color of the rugs he’s purchased, to have Varric trying different wines with him, to have Aveline and her fiancé Donnic over for dinner. He has Hawke and Merrill often over, to spend the evening talking before the fire, playing with Hawke's mabari. The great hound even gets along with Libertas, which pleases Fenris greatly. Had he more resources, he might even find a mabari pup of his own. Even Anders, though he still holds Fenris at arm’s length, seems to enjoy the friendlier surroundings when he comes to visit Libertas.

And if the mansion’s architecture, vaguely reminiscent of buildings in Minrathous, sometimes still makes Fenris feel as if there are eyes on his back, well…it can’t be helped.

Some weeks later, Hawke acquires a new companion, one they helped in the past just before the Qunari invasion: Sebastian Vael, a Chantry brother. He’s a handsome man, a bit of a flirt for someone who’s taken a vow of chastity and a bit of a hedonist for someone who’s taken a vow of poverty. He’s a flawless archer and, if not an intellectual, _intelligent_. Fenris likes him.

Anders does _not_.

“The only reason he hasn’t turned Merrill and I in to the Templars yet is because he’s in love with Hawke,” he says, when Varric asks.

They’re assembling supplies for an expedition out to the Bone Pit. It sounds as if there’s going to be trouble of a draconic sort. Even though Fenris didn’t particularly wish to go with Anders in the party, Hawke managed to sweet-talk him into it by reminding him of how much fun he had fighting the dragons during their first trip out to the Pit.

Varric snorts, sighting down Bianca as he speaks. “In love? Blondie, I think all that elfroot is getting to your head.”

Fenris thinks of the first time he met Hawke, the way she stunned him just by her presence. Of how, even after Hawke’s betrayal, Isabela still follows her wherever she asks. “No, I think the mage has a point,” he says. “We were all in love with her, at one point or another.”

“ _You_ understand me,” Anders says, pointing at Fenris.

“Never thought I’d see the day where you two agreed like that,” Varric says.

Fenris studies a coil of rope, attempting to look disinterested. “He _sometimes_ knows what he’s talking about.”

“Your magnanimity _astounds_ me,” Anders says. Fenris glares at him.

Varric chuckles. “And the world begins to turn again. Anyway, no reader will ever believe that someone has _that_ much charisma.”

It’s a _high dragon_ , as it turns out. After the third fireball hits him, Fenris is extremely glad to have Anders along. He also doesn’t plan on telling Hawke, but fighting this dragon was fun, too.

After that trip, Fenris watches Sebastian a little more closely. He notices what only Anders did before: that Sebastian scowls when Hawke helps mages, that he is more vocal than Fenris in every disagreement with Anders, that he always refuses to come along on trips to the clinic.

It should make Fenris happy that he has an ally in his problems with the mages in their crew. Yet he finds himself promising himself that, should Sebastian ever threaten Anders and Merrill, he will take steps to protect them. It is only fair, after the number of times that they’ve protected him.

He will not examine his motivations for this promise more closely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re: corpses—as much as I love poking at Fenris, I feel like the whole “he lived in a mansion filled with Dead People” may have been Varric embellishing the truth a bit… XD


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a respite from all the heaviness. Let's have some happy times, shall we? :)

Donnic lays down his second card, a Prince. “Pay up,” he says smugly, to a round of groans.

“Two Princes, two hands in a _row_ ,” Anders mutters, throwing his cards at Fenris. “Did Varric teach you to cheat when we weren’t looking?”

“Just good luck, I suppose,” Donnic says. He sweeps the sizeable pile of coins to his side of the table, grinning.

Fenris shuffles his cards—a King and an Arl, what should have been a winning hand—back into the deck along with the rest of the cards. “ _Beginner’s_ luck, more like.”

Varric, who wisely folded before the bidding became fierce, chuckles. “This is our third week in a row, Broody. He doesn’t count as a beginner anymore.”

Anders, elbow on table and chin propped on hand, sighs. “Share the luck with me, Donnic.”

“Maybe if you wouldn’t match the wager when you’re holding two Teyrns and Donnic has already shown a Prince, you’d be doing better,” Fenris points out.

He gets a scowl for that, but there’s no bite to the look. “He’s got you there,” Varric says, accepting the deck as Fenris passes it to him for his turn as dealer.

“I don’t know why I keep playing with all of you when I leave every week with empty pockets,” Anders complains.

“Because you like us,” Donnic says, patting Anders on the shoulder.

Anders sighs, but there’s a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Maker help me, I _do_.”

As Varric deals, Fenris leans back in his chair to take a sip of his wine. This is a pleasant evening. He wasn’t sure, initially, that setting up weekly Diamondback games at his mansion was a good idea when Varric suggested it. But, so far, it’s been good. Donnic, now that things have settled down with Aveline, turns out to be extremely good company. And, of course, Varric is always nice to have around.

He still isn’t sure what possessed him to ask Anders to come. Fenris doesn’t regret it, though. The tension between them has calmed over the past months, bringing things back to some form of equilibrium. Neither of them speak of the ill-starred attempt at a dalliance, nor of Anders’ words during the invasion. That is as it should be.

But it pleases Fenris that they can drink together, play cards, fight side by side, share a cat. It’s…nice to have the mage for company again. He fails in every attempt _not_ to pay attention to the way that firelight catches Anders’ eyes, or the grace of his hands when casting healing magic, or any of his other myriad charms.

Fenris will not fail in restraining himself this time, though.

He accepts his cards from Varric and studies them, keeping his face blank. King and Bann, an atrocious hand unless he bluffs adequately. Varric is the only one who can even pretend to read him, so he’s not terribly concerned.

Varric drops two coppers on the center of the table. By general accord, they play only for coppers, since Anders never has anything more than that in his purse. None of them speak of it, but Fenris knows the courtesy doesn’t go unappreciated. “Match or fold,” Varric says

Each of them toss two coppers into the center of the table, to Fenris’ surprise. Donnic’s brow is furrowed. Anders looks far too confident. Varric, as usual, gives nothing away, save a glitter of avarice in his eyes at the sight of the eight coppers.

At Varric’s signal, Fenris lays down his King. Hopefully, they’ll all believe his other card is of far higher value than it is— _anything_ but a Bann would be better than this. Anders and Donnic both lay down Princes, and Varric a Teyrn.

“Match or fold,” Varric says, pushing two more coppers into the pile.

Donnic looks down at his cards and sighs. “Fold,” he says, shaking his head and laying down his second card. “Good luck to all of you.”

Anders, with a challenging look at Fenris, adds his two coppers. Fenris doesn’t react, only adds two more himself. He’s not confident in this hand, but he _is_ confident that Anders is bluffing that he has a good hand. The mage never does.

Varric looks between them, down at his cards, and mutters, “Maker’s breath, what have I got to lose?” He tosses two more coppers into the pile.

Without missing a beat, Anders matches the wager. “You’re going to need Donnic’s luck,” he teases Fenris, looking entirely too insolent.

Fenris makes a noncommittal noise and matches as well. Surely Anders will give in. He hasn’t got this much to lose.

“Fold,” Varric announces, setting down his cards. “You two, show your hands.”

“Ah, venhedis!” Fenris slaps down his Bann, to a dismayed sound from Donnic.

“Finally!” Anders throws out his second card, a Prince. He sweeps the winnings to his side of the table, smiling in a far-too-becoming way.

It’s been months since Fenris saw him smile like this and the sight makes his heart clench painfully. It’s like the sun broke into the mansion and lit up the entire table. Looking at Anders, Fenris can’t help but smile back, even if it is small.

For just a moment, their eyes meet. Anders looks bright and hopeful and _happy_ , even though he’s looking at Fenris, and Fenris wishes the moment to stretch on forever. This meaningless hand of cards, so brief, suddenly seems so much more important than anything else.

“You still can’t bluff,” Donnic points out, breaking the moment as he takes the deck for his turn as dealer. “You looked like the cat that got the cream.”

“I _did_ , didn’t I,” Anders says. He looks away from Fenris. He idly stacks the coppers in front of himself and Fenris tries not to watch the way his hands move.

Donnic shuffles the cards. “Even I could tell you were holding something really good.” He glances at Fenris. “I’m not sure how you missed it.”

“I _could_ have had a better hand, with a King showing,” Fenris mutters, folding his arms.

“Don’t pout, it’s not becoming,” Varric says. He pats Fenris on the shoulder. “Blondie’s luck never comes in a streak. Pretty sure you’ll win everything back in the next two hands.”

“Hey!” Anders says. “I’m not _that_ bad!”

“Yes, you are,” the other three chorus, and it’s so ridiculous that even Anders has to laugh.

The game goes on, stretching long into the evening. Fenris loses himself in the rhythm of the game, the taste of wine, the sound of laughter and friendly voices. For the first time, in a long time, he feels safe. Relaxed. Even happy.

Perhaps things will finally take a turn for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The weekly Diamondback games at the mansion are canon! I love this with my whole entire heart.
> 
> According to DA wiki trivia, _[t]he card game Diamondback mentioned in Oghren’s conversation with Alistair is a reference to a game of the same name in Dave Sim’s Cerebus the Aardvark._ Knowing this, it’s possible to dig up the rules to the game. I’ve edited card names to reflect the Ferelden ranks of nobility. Although I haven’t copied the rules in here, the flow of the game is coherent with the rules of Diamondback.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Heads up for Danarius, and all the possible warnings that can come with this asshole.**
> 
> And I do mean all of them. Tread with caution. He is his own warning, basically. (Oh, and warning for Fenris being his inimitably-violent self.)

“Don’t do it,” Hawke advises, as they sit in her solar-turned-office in her mansion. “Better to lay low a while. Stay here, even. Nobody would dare bother you on my estate.”

“And we can protect you, even if they try,” Merrill says, looking at him with worried eyes.

Fenris looks away from them both. “It could be my _sister_ , Hawke…you understand.”

Hawke sighs. “Fenris,” she says, “you know I’d give anything to see Bethany or Carver again. But that wouldn’t come with the risk of running afoul of someone like Danarius. And I can’t come along, you know that.”

“You’re right,” Fenris says after a moment. He sits back in the chair. “I’ll…stay here, until Varric tells me the coast is clear.”

“Good man,” Hawke says. She claps him heavily on the shoulder and he flinches as the lyrium brand arcing over his shoulder sears with sudden pain.

They’ve been hurting more, lately, or perhaps he’s just noticing it more. They never really _stop_ , so the pain has faded into the background over the years. But the thoughts of his sister, of Danarius, of his past…it makes every inch of Fenris’ body ache.

He means to stay safe, he truly does. On the day of the appointed meeting, though, Fenris still finds himself on the doorstep of the Hanged Man. He has his sword and armor, of course. His anxious excitement hasn’t dulled his wariness.

The barroom is conspicuously empty as Fenris enters, which sets his hackles up instantly. He sweeps the room with his gaze and sees a lovely young elf woman, with red hair pulled up in a bun and robes in the Tevinter style, sitting on the far side of the room.

“Varania?” he asks hesitantly, approaching slowly.

She rises to her feet and looks at him with cold eyes. “Leto,” she says.

Fenris stops in his tracks. “…what?”

“That’s your name,” she says. “It’s been a very long time.”

“It has, hasn’t it.”

At the sound of the voice from the stairs, Fenris freezes. He looks up to see the man of his _nightmares_ descending the steps from the second story, flanked by a squad of guards. His refined robes look out of place, almost ridiculous, in the battered surroundings of the Hanged Man, but the sickening lurch of familiarity when Fenris looks at Danarius’ face makes him feel like he’s back in Minrathous.

“No,” Fenris says hoarsely. He steps back, reaching unsteadily for his sword. His fingers slip on the hilt and he can’t get hold of it. “I will _not_ go with you.”

Danarius spreads his arms wide, as if to embrace Fenris. He’s tall, imposing, solid. Fenris is caught between wanting to run and wanting to rip out his heart and wanting to drop straight to his knees. “You don’t really have a choice, my dear little wolf,” Danarius says.

Fenris finally gets purchase on his sword. He rips it from its sheath and holds it tight, too tight. He stares down the blade at Danarius. This is it. His chance.

“See how he freezes, Varania,” Danarius says. His voice, smooth as oil, makes Fenris shake. “He knows his place, even if he believes himself above it.”

There’s no one between Fenris and the door. He could run, easily. He’s fast enough to get out the door and into the street before Danarius can cast a single spell.

He can’t will his feet to move.

“All can be forgiven, Fenris.” Danarius is moving toward him. His eyes are kind, predatory, and so horribly familiar. “You were always my _favorite_ …”

“And what is the cost of forgiveness?” Fenris growls.

Danarius smiles, sharp as a razor. “Nothing you haven’t paid before, little wolf. A test of your skills…to see if you remember how to serve your master.”

Fenris can hardly hear through the white-hot scream inside his head. His sword is so heavy in his hands that the best thing seems to be to drop it, if he drops his sword he might as well finish the job by falling to his knees, and maybe Danarius is right and he was always meant for this after all—

The door splinters off its hinges with a crash.

Danarius’ gaze jerks away from Fenris and he snarls. “You dare—”

“I live here,” Varric drawls. “Of course I dare.”

Fenris chances a look back over his shoulder. Varric, strolling through the door with Bianca leveled at Danarius, and behind him, tall and thunderous, Anders. His heart _leaps_.

“Step back,” Anders says, glaring past Fenris at Danarius.

Slowly, Danarius surveys Anders. “So he found a new master after all. Poor Fenris, alone in a strange land…of course he needed a gentle hand to guide him.”

His guards have come to join him, all with naked blades in their hands. This, Fenris can do. This is what he always does: stand between his friends and a threat. His grip on his sword settles and he relaxes into a familiar stance. Danarius is still there, but Fenris is _ready_ now.

“So he remembers how to fight,” Danarius says thoughtfully. He still looks at Anders, as if Fenris is completely unimportant. “You must truly command his loyalty. However did you manage to tame him? I did not give him this name ironically…”

“ **He is not tame**.” Anders’ voice rings strangely and Fenris freezes. He looks again and sees Anders’ eyes flaring with blue-white light, his skin cracking apart, lit from within.

“Maker’s breath!” Varric takes several prudent steps back. Even Danarius looks shocked, taking a step back and raising his staff defensively.

Fenris never thought he’d be glad to see Anders’ demon, but life is _full_ of surprises.

“What is this?” Danarius demands.

“ **You will not leave this place** ,” Justice snarls. Anders’ staff falls aside as the demon—spirit?—steps forward, almost shoulder to shoulder with Fenris, lightning crackling around his arms. “ **You will face retribution for the crimes you have committed**.”

Danarius snarls. “I have committed no crimes! He is my _property_!”

He raises his staff, to cast a spell, but Fenris is faster. He drops his sword and launches himself forward, tackling Danarius and slamming the magister to the ground. Danarius goes down with a shout, Fenris pinning him to the floor.

Distantly, Fenris hears the sound of Varric’s crossbow and the thunder of Justice’s magic, but all his attention is on the man beneath him. Danarius lost his staff in the fall and suddenly he looks afraid, mortal, _small_. “Fenris,” he gasps. “ _Please_.”

Fenris drives his fist into Danarius’ chest.

His hand closes around Danarius’ heart.

And Fenris _rips_ it out.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have tried to handle this topic with appropriate sensitivity, but please be mindful. Fenris has a difficult time in this bit. He’s suffering some very dark thoughts, grappling with the aftermath of trauma, and not necessarily doing so in the healthiest way. If you’re likely to be upset by the kind of thinking that can surround past abusive relationships, please proceed with caution. <3

In the aftermath, Varric handles the cleanup. He’ll pay someone to dispose of the bodies and handle the destroyed chairs and tables. Anders insists on taking Fenris home, and Fenris doesn’t argue with him. A numbness lingers over him, as if he’s looking through fog at the world around him.

The phantom sensation of blood sticks to his face no matter how frequently he wipes at his skin, trying to get it off. Anders must notice, but makes no comment. He doesn’t press Fenris to talk, just shepherds him through streets Fenris doesn’t see back to the mansion.

At some point after their arrival, Fenris finally pays enough attention to his surroundings to realize that he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor near the kitchen hearth. The fire burns low but steady. His bloodied armor is off, but his sword leans against the wall close by; at some point, he must have changed into clean clothes and cleaned the blood from his now-damp hair.

Libertas perches on the counter, happily devouring some snack, purring up a storm. And there, on one of the benches running the length of the kitchen table, is Anders. His coat and mantle are off and staff set aside, and his sleeves are rolled up to his elbows. He’s writing something, oblivious to Fenris.

“How did you know to come?” Fenris asks.

Anders looks up from his work, but doesn’t give more of a reaction than the concerned expression he wears. “Varric and I were on an errand. One of his friends came and informed us that some Tevinter nobleman showed up and threw everyone out of the bar. We had a feeling we’d be needed.”

“Thank you,” Fenris says.

“I’m only sorry we weren’t there sooner.”

"I was not injured."

Anders watches him, calm and concerned. "You could have been. I'm glad you're not."

Fenris looks down at his hands. Bloodless. Clean. Lyrium lines slashing his palms, paralleling tendons in his wrists, vanishing into his sleeves. “I almost expected them to disappear,” he murmurs, half to himself.

“If I could make that happen for you, I would.”

“Seems I’m stuck with them.” Fenris draws his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. He has the vaguest memory of sitting like this as a child, but it is still a comforting position for him, when he is alone. He looks into the fire. “I thought I’d be celebrating.”

“You deserve to celebrate,” Anders says softly. “You’ve won a lot today.”

The fire flickers. Fenris watches the flames dance, hypnotic. He’s aware, distantly, of a few tears slipping down his cheeks. “I feel more like I’ve _lost_ something. I want to rejoice, but…”

After a long moment, Anders prompts, “But…?”

It’s his healer voice, the one he pulls out when someone is badly injured on the battlefield or a particularly ill patient comes to his clinic. On an ordinary day, Fenris would bristle at it, scold Anders to keep his pity for himself. Today, the gentleness feels a bit more like a balm.

“He would have done…unspeakable things to me, if I had gone with him,” Fenris says to the flames. The image of Danarius bleeding out on the floor dances in the fire and Fenris closes his eyes. “Yet I regret his death. I would…undo it, if I could.”

Anders makes a small, noncommittal noise. There’s a scrape as the bench moves back. Footsteps cross the flagstone floor, and Anders’ clothes rustle as he sits down on the other side of the hearth. Fenris doesn’t open his eyes.

“You mourn him.”

“Yes,” Fenris says. He wipes his face with the back of his hand. “No _._ I don’t _know_. I am glad to be free. That is what matters.”

For a moment, Anders is silent. “I’ve seen this kind of thing before,” he says. “Lots of different circumstances. People want to go back to what they know, where they feel safe.”

“And that’s supposed to _reassure_ me?” Fenris opens his eyes and gives Anders a flat look.

On the other side of the hearth, Anders mirrors Fenris’ posture, knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped around his legs. He looks sad, in the firelight, even more so than usual. “I don’t know if I can reassure you at all, with this,” he says. “Just…I’ve wanted to go back, too, even if it’s horrible.”

“You, return to the Circle?” Fenris rolls his eyes, striving to act like usual. “Perish the thought.”

But Anders’ expression doesn’t change. “On the bad nights? I’d do it in a heartbeat.”

Fenris bites his lip hard, ignoring the pain when his teeth clamp down on the tip of one of the lyrium lines that curve over his chin. He feels his breath hitch once, twice. He swallows down the sob, or perhaps scream, that wants to tear from his throat. When he speaks, his voice breaks. “I…”

There is so much he wants to say. He wants to mourn Danarius. He wants to dance on the man’s grave. He’s more afraid than he’s ever been in his life. His lyrium still hurts. Freedom feels nothing like he thought it would feel. He wants— _needs_ —to say something, but Fenris just can’t find the words.

He bows his head, forehead resting on his knees, and he stifles a sob. Fenris isn’t even sure when he last cried. And now, of all times…shame burns through Fenris that he’s being seen like this, so weak in what should have been his hour of greatest victory.

Anders’ warm hand rests on Fenris’ shoulder. Fenris leans into the touch without looking up. After another long moment, Anders wraps an arm around Fenris. Not so tight that Fenris can’t move away, but close enough that Fenris can lean on him. And Fenris does.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, does anyone else remember [Chapter 5](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22337002/chapters/53677615)? 
> 
> :>

“There are fewer books on magic in here than I expected,” Anders says, fingertips running over the spines of books as he wanders along the library shelves.

Fenris shrugs. “I never looked,” he says. “And, after all, this mansion didn’t actually belong to Danarius—only to one of his merchant acquaintances. I wouldn’t expect much.”

Anders pulls a book down and opens it. “Fair enough.” His voice is absent as he scans the pages.

It’s strange to have Anders in his mansion like this again, without any other company. It’s been a long time since they’ve been so familiar, but Fenris can’t say he minds, especially after…what happened last month. The evening started with Anders dropping by to see Libertas, but when Fenris—out of courtesy _only_ , of course—offered him a drink, the mage had stayed.

Now here they are in the library, Fenris occupying his favorite armchair while Anders examines the dusty books. The books Fenris likes are stacked neatly on a desk; despite his passable literacy, he remains a slow reader, so there aren’t many. Anders hasn’t touched those, nor has he touched the small box of papers and pamphlets Fenris has accumulated courtesy of his well-meaning friends. Considering the methodical circuit he’s making of the library, though, it’s only a matter of time before he arrives at the desk.

With Anders occupied with a book, Fenris takes the opportunity to study the mage. It’s been a while since he really _looked_. He’d noticed the change in coats, of course, the same rough silhouette but in an austere black. Even the feathered mantle is black now, and heavier than it was before. This, though, is merely cosmetic.

The other changes are less obvious. Anders’ hair is overlong, as if he’s forgetting to trim it. His movements are heavy with fatigue, even a little clumsy, as Fenris has never seen before. The bruise-colored circles under his eyes are prominent and ever-present. His shoulders are perpetually hunched. It is, generally, an unattractive look.

And yet Fenris still somehow gets stuck thinking about the shine of Anders’ eyes when he sees their cat, or the fine shape of his jaw, or…

“You’re staring, Fenris,” Anders says dryly, without looking up from the book in his hands.

Fenris drags his gaze away to the window. “I was…lost in thought.”

Anders slides the book back on the shelf and wanders across the room to the desk. “That seems to happen a lot around me,” he says. The words are plain, laced with no innuendo, but Fenris feels as if he’s a rabbit caught in a trap all the same.

In the interest of saying nothing incriminating, Fenris doesn’t reply. He looks out the window as Anders begins to shuffle through the papers on the desk. He would pet Libertas, but the cat abandoned them long ago for her own devices, off to roam the mansion and hunt mice (which will invariably be given to Fenris as a gruesome gift later in the night).

Come to think of it, with Libertas gone, why is Anders still here?

His thoughts screech to a halt at a short, sharp, shocked sound from the desk. Fenris looks, already half out of the chair, to see Anders holding a small scrap of paper in both hands. He stares at it, then looks up at Fenris, eyes wide.

“Why do you have this?”

“What is it?” Fenris asks. He sits again, wary.

Anders looks down at the scrap again. “It’s a draft of my manifesto,” he says. His voice is raw. “Did you…Fenris, did you read this?”

“You gave it to me on accident,” Fenris says slowly. The memory is vague, but present. “When I was first learning to read. It was mixed in with something else. You didn’t intend me to have it.”

“I wouldn’t have.” Anders leans heavily on the desk, one hand planted on it as if for balance. He doesn’t look at Fenris. “This is an old draft…I remember this passage, but it’s changed so much…”

“Should I have told you I had it?”

“I would have been _furious_ with you if you had,” Anders says. He’s very still.

A log falls with a small crash in the fireplace, making them both flinch. The sound doesn’t break the tension, though. Fenris thinks of rising, but stays in place for now.

Gently, Anders drops the scrap back into the box. His free hand comes up to rub his eyes. “That makes you the _only_ one of my fucking friends to have read it.”

“That can’t be,” Fenris says. “Surely Varric—”

“Never,” Anders says, a little choked. His hand is still pressed to his face. “Just _you_. The person who hates mages more than anyone else in this entire Maker-damned city.”

Fenris feels the words like a blow. “I don’t,” he says. “I don’t…hate you or Merrill, or anyone else.”

Anders looks at him, eyes red-rimmed with unshed tears. “Then _what_ in the name of Andraste do you feel about us?” he asks.

One breath passes. Another. Fenris forces the words out, barely a whisper: “I’m afraid of you.”

“You…”

“Have I never said it before?” Fenris stands up on shaky legs and comes to stand beside Anders at the desk. He’s still looking up at Anders, but this puts them on more equal ground. “I thought everything I’d said about Tevinter, what you saw with Danarius…”

Anders shakes his head, still leaning on the desk. “I never…I only heard you say that we’re dangerous. A threat. We should be imprisoned. Made Tranquil. You’ve made it clear, you hate us.”

Yes, he has said all those things. _Many_ times, and sometimes worse things. “I would have thought you, of all people, would have noticed that the things I said were born of fear,” Fenris says, with a small, crooked smile. “Anger and fear.”

“I suppose I was too close to the issue to pay attention.” Anders doesn’t return the smile, staring down at the desk. “I heard what I wanted to hear. And I…”

He pauses. Fenris doesn’t speak, just waits. It feels as if he’s standing on a precipice.

“I was wrong.”

Those words are as if the Maker has thrown open the gates to the Golden City. Fenris has been waiting to hear them for _years_. Yet Fenris would be happy if the gates stayed shut, if it meant that Anders didn’t look so _broken_. “So was I,” he says.

Fenris thinks of all their spats and verbal scuffles over the years. Most of them have blurred into one long, frustrating history, but a few stand out. Anders asking Fenris if he’d ever contemplated suicide to escape Danarius. Fenris implying Anders would be fine with blood magic if it meant he could strike against the Chantry. Anders snidely wondering why Danarius never killed Fenris for disobedience. Fenris nearly saying outright that Anders’ friend deserved Tranquility.

For years, Anders had preached of the good fortune of Tevinter mages and openly claimed that Fenris was too sensitive about what he had suffered. He’d ignored the plight of elves and begrudged every mission to take down a slaving ring on the grounds that it distracted from his cause. Anders had insulted Fenris, browbeat him, snapped and snarled and generally been an ass.

And yet Fenris cannot call himself blameless. _Fenris_ was the one who said at every opportunity that all mages are monsters in the making, that violence is second nature to a mage, that mages should be imprisoned without committing a crime. He’d called Anders an abomination. No wonder that Anders saw hate where there was truly only fear. The recognition of his hypocrisy makes his stomach lurch.

“Hey,” Anders says, waving a hand in front of Fenris’ face, “hello, are you with me?”

“Yes.”

“Copper for your thoughts.”

Fenris toys with the hem of his tunic. “We have horribly misused each other,” he says. He looks away again, at the dying fire. “I would…start over with you, mage. Anders.”

“I’d like that, elf. _Fenris_.”

After a moment of almost peaceful silence, Fenris looks back at Anders and is startled to find himself under intense scrutiny. “We—we can start with your manifesto,” he says, stumbling a little over his words in the shock of meeting Anders’ eyes.

“Really?”

Fenris nods. “I would like to read it. The whole work, this time.”

He isn’t surprised when Anders reaches into an inner pocket of his coat to withdraw a much-folded piece of paper. Anders holds it out and Fenris takes it. “You’ll still be the only one to have read it,” Anders says softly. “Fitting, considering that it’s the final copy.”

“You’ve been working on it for nearly six years,” Fenris says. “I’m certain it’s a worthy work.”

“It’s far from perfect,” Anders says, with a small, sad smile, “but I’m done. Justice agrees that it’s time to try another strategy. No matter how well I speak, no one seems inclined to listen.”

Fenris desperately, desperately wants to do something to take the hurt off Anders’ face. “I am listening,” he says, in place of any action.

“That makes you the first.”

There was no way Fenris could have prepared for Anders to lean down and press a dry, chapped kiss to his forehead. Where Anders’ lips touch the lyrium, it twinges with pain, but Fenris hardly notices. He looks up at Anders, stunned into silence.

Before he can speak, Anders steps back, that painful smile still in place. He crosses the room, collects his staff, and vanishes out the door. A few moments later, the back door shuts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The incidents Fenris references are lifted directly from their in-game conversations with each other, especially from Act 1 and Act 2. 
> 
> Act 3 is, obviously, going a little bit differently in this fic.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the arachnophobes among you, mild spider warning.
> 
> **Welcome to the endgame.**
> 
> Remember: happy ending. I promise. <3

“Fasta vass, Anders, is this drakestone _really_ worth it?” Fenris grimaces, trying to wipe spider guts off his sword. They just get stuck to his gauntlet instead.

Anders makes a similar face, looking down at the sticky hem of his coat and the splashes of spider on his boots. “Do you _want_ me separated from Justice, or not?”

“Fair enough.” Fenris gives up on trying to clean his sword. He’ll do it later. “How many more deposits do you require?”

“I think we’re clear,” Anders says, kneeling down and collecting some stones from a cavity in the wall. “That’s about the weight I need.”

Fenris surveys the mineshaft. Half a dozen spiders slump and sprawl in various poses of death, compound eyes still glittering unsettlingly in the flicking light of the torch Anders carries. Deeper in the shaft, Fenris hears the clicking of many more legs, but none approaching yet. He wrinkles his nose at the stench of drakestone filling the air.

“Let us get out of here,” he says, turning back toward the entrance of the mines.

Anders rises, tying the pouch of drakestone to his belt. “Thank you for coming, Fenris,” he says as they fall into step.

“My pleasure. I do _so_ enjoy getting covered in the poisonous innards of spiders,” Fenris says, though there’s no bite to his sarcasm. At this point, it’s mostly for show.

“They do make a satisfying sound when a sword hits them, at least,” Anders says contemplatively, ignoring Fenris’ grumbling.

Fenris glances over his shoulder and sees eyes glimmering in the darkness at the edge of the torchlight. The spiders don’t come closer, but Fenris would still be _much_ happier if someone else were along to provide a second sword. “Tell me again _why_ Hawke isn’t here?”

“Mm. She had more important things to do,” Anders says. His tone is flat. Even the sound of his boots crunching on the detritus of the mineshaft sounds irritated.

Fenris narrows his eyes. “More important than separating you from your…spirit?”

“Apparently.”

They’re nearing the end of the mineshaft, the light of late afternoon glowing at the entrance. “I do wonder at the fact that your spirit suddenly wants to separate from you.”

At Fenris’ words, Anders winces hard. “It’s complicated to explain.”

“…give it a try.”

“I can’t.”

They step out of the mineshaft and into the light of the empty Bone Pit. The workers have gone home, leaving the whole quarry echoing with silence. Though it’s dim, the sunlight fading into the western horizon, it’s still too much after the pitch-black mineshaft. Fenris shades his eyes to look up at Anders. He’s holding his staff tight, shoulders hunched, and looks tense. “Have I not earned your trust?”

“You have,” Anders says. He sighs. “Fenris…I don’t want you to concern yourself with this. I hope, and Justice hopes, that this will be a better way to achieve our ends.”

Despite the heat of the day, Fenris feels a chill. “Your _ends_?”

Anders gives him a wan smile, leaning heavily on his staff, gripping it tight in both hands. “Freedom for mages. Has it ever been anything else?”

Fenris leans his sword against the wall and turns to face Anders, arms folded. “What are you not telling me?”

“Please…don’t worry about it. I’ll do what I have to do, and then it will be over.”

_Over_. “You’re not making a potion.”

“That’s not your concern.”

“Venhedis, Anders, _you_ are my concern. Whatever is happening, I would help you if I could.”

Anders looks like Fenris just slapped him. It takes him a moment to speak, and when he does his voice is husky, tense. “I swear it, Fenris, you’ve done everything you can to help me. I’m more grateful than I can say.”

“At least do me the courtesy of telling me what caused this.”

“…you remember Ser Alrik? The Templar crusading to make all mages Tranquil? We fought him in that passage from the Gallows.”

Fenris nods. “Of course. That was a…memorable day.”

Memorable, in part, because it was the day that Fenris saw Justice unleashed for the first time, when Anders almost killed another mage. It was also the day that Fenris called Anders an abomination. All around, it hadn’t been the best of all possible days. It _certainly_ hadn’t helped them get along.

“It was,” Anders says. As he speaks, he looks more tired than ever. “I’ve kept track of such things since, hints of trouble. Something is brewing in the Circle here in Kirkwall. First Enchanter Orsino is at odds with the Knight-Commander. Security is locked down. Mages can’t get out. Even the Tranquil aren’t permitted to leave.”

“Worrisome,” Fenris says. He’s still staunch in his beliefs about the necessity of the Circles, but he can understand Anders’ concern. Departure from usual procedure is never a good sign.

Anders rubs his face with one hand. “Meredith has decimated the Mage Underground. There are rumors that she’s sent to the Divine for…well. Something must be done. _Soon_.”

“This drakestone is part of how you intend to help?”

“With it, Justice and I can make a difference,” Anders says. He looks back toward Kirkwall, at the city skyline along the coast, surmounted by the spire of the Chantry. In the dying light, the Chantry looks beautiful, flawless, placed by the hand of the Maker. “It’s the only choice we have.”

Discomfort still crawls over Fenris’ skin, but he senses that further prying will get him nowhere. “I wish you luck, then,” he says.

“Thanks.” Anders looks at him for a long moment, then says quietly, “I’m glad to have had the chance to be your friend, Fenris.”

“The same,” Fenris says.

He meets Anders’ eyes. There’s the space of a breath when he might have asked again, and he thinks that Anders might have told him the truth. But it passes too quickly. Anders turns away, heading down the path back toward the city, and Fenris follows.

The sun is setting over Kirkwall.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon dialogue abounds in this chapter.
> 
> Just so you know, I am 100% in camp Anders Is Right And Did The Right Thing. (Hit me up in the comments if you want my more complex thoughts on the matter, I’m happy to explain.) However, this chapter is from the point of view of someone who is…not in that camp. This may be jarring. It certainly was for me to write. 
> 
> And warning: there is a stabbing in this chapter. :(

The smell of drakestone fills the streets with the clouds of smoke, and the sky overhead ripples in shades of orange and gold like flame. Even from Lowtown, the fires blazing in the ruins of the Chantry high above are visible. Distantly, there are screams, the occasional clash of blades. Yet in this square, everything is silent except for the softest patter of flakes of ash falling on the flagstones. Mage bodies lie scattered across the square, unthreatening in death.

Fenris lets his sword’s tip rest on the ground, watching numbly as Meredith and her Templars storm away toward the docks. It all happened so _fast_ …

Anders sits on a crate, his back to everyone. As Hawke paces across the square, towering over him, he speaks. “There’s nothing you can say that I haven’t already said to myself. I took a spirit into my soul and changed myself forever to achieve this. This is the justice all mages have awaited.”

The words sound rehearsed, practiced. Fenris stares at Anders, still numb. How can they move forward when Anders did…this? When he asked Fenris to help make this happen?

“Did that _spirit_ tell you to do this?” Hawke sneers.

“No. When we merged, he ceased to be,” Anders says. “We are one now. I can no more ignore the injustice of the Circle than he could.”

Fenris swallows past a lump in his throat. He never suspected…he’d thought Anders a bad liar. He thought he knew the truth of the man, that after all this time they had reached a real understanding.

Then again, perhaps he still hadn’t really listened. Fenris read the manifesto. He knew Anders’ stances and yet never really _believed_ that Anders would take such drastic action, if pushed to it.

“You could have trusted me,” Fenris says, and all eyes turn to him.

Sebastian recoils. “Fenris…you knew? That he was planning this, the death of Elthina, of innocent men and women of faith?”

“He did not explain why he needed the drakestone.” Fenris wants Anders to turn around, to look at him, but Anders doesn’t move.

“I wanted to tell you,” Anders says. “But you would have stopped me. I could not take that risk.”

Aveline is looking at Fenris with pity, Varric with plain sadness. Even Sebastian, through his obvious fury, looks sympathetic. Fenris wonders distantly just what he looks like, to make them feel so deeply for him.

“The world needs to see this,” Anders says. Fenris looks up again at the ruined Chantry. The lyrium lines in his skin are searing hot, almost too much to bear. This is everything, _everything_ , he has ever feared mages would do, with power in their hands. “Then we can all stop pretending the Circle is a solution. And if I pay for that with my life…then I pay. Perhaps then Justice would at least be free.”

Hawke, her shining armor blackened by ash, looks down at him. “You have to pay for what you’ve done,” she says.

Anders pauses for a moment. “I know,” he says.

Deliberately, Hawke draws her dagger from her belt. Fenris steps forward before he can think about it. “Hawke, _wait_!”

She turns a frigid look on him. “Did I _ask_ for your opinion?”

“There are other ways to pay than with his life,” Fenris says.

“Yes,” Merrill says, “he should come with us, do what he can to put things right.” Fenris looks askance at her: of all their companions, he never expected _Merrill_ to be the one to stand up for Anders.

“They’ve got a point,” Isabela says. “You let _me_ go, and I brought an army down on Kirkwall.”

Hawke glares at them. Her grip on the dagger is so tight Fenris thinks the hilt will snap. “That was a mistake,” she growls. “And I will _not_ be gainsaid this time.”

Anders looks over his shoulder, then, far too calm. Fenris meets his eyes and feels all the blood drain from his face. Anders looks _resigned_. “Fenris…it was nice to be happy, for a while.”

“ _No_!”

Hawke slams the dagger into Anders’ back.

It would be worse if Anders made a sound. He doesn’t. Hawke is a practiced killer, knows how to aim her strikes to bring the quickest death. Anders just sways for a moment, then slumps to the side. Falls from the crate, hits the ground with a soft thud.

He doesn’t move again.

Fenris’ sword drops with a crash and his hands ignite blue. Aveline seizes him by the upper arm, holding him back before he can launch himself at Hawke. “What have you _done_!?”

“I’d have thought you’d be pleased.” Hawke turns to him, wiping her hand on her tabard. “This will end the troubles with the Circle once and for all. No more demons, no more blood magic…”

“He was your _friend_!”

Hawke folds her arms. “Was he?” she asks. “He undid everything I’ve worked for. Turned out to be a liar. A traitor. Sounds like he got you believing him, too.”

Fenris snarls. “What he did is wrong, but killing him solves nothing!”

“It certainly means we won’t have to listen to him whining anymore. That’s a problem solved.”

“ _What_?”

Sebastian looks _disgustingly_ righteous. “I agree with Hawke. That incessant moaning about things that no one else sees as a problem…and that _manifesto_ …”

“Did you ever read it?” Fenris snaps. “Did _any_ of you bother?”

There is a silence. Varric, for the first time since Fenris met him, looks shamefaced. Merrill just looks sad. Aveline gives away nothing. And Hawke…Hawke looks _satisfied_.

“I didn’t need to read it,” she says. “This, right here, is what he wanted. Killing clerics and Templars alike. Setting mages loose on the world to do as they will…which is always bad, as I thought _you of all people_ knew. I knew this was coming. Apostates are never any good.”

“Your _father_ was an apostate,” Fenris says.

Hawke’s lip curls. “And see where _that_ got my family,” she says. “Bethany, dead. Carver, a Grey Warden. Mother, dead. Me, _alone_.” Merrill makes a wounded noise at that last, but Hawke ignores her.

Fenris shakes Aveline’s hand off and bends to pick up his sword. “You used Anders all these years and he trusted you. _I_ trusted you.”

“And now you don’t?” Hawke asks.

“Twice now you have turned on those you call your friends.” Fenris slams his sword into its sheath. “I will _not_ be the third to be betrayed.”

Hawke holds up her hands. “You never gave me any reason to believe you’re a problem. You’ve never done anything inconvenient.”

A horrible feeling crawls up Fenris’ back. He remembers Hawke telling him to stay at her estate, claiming she had no time to help him when Danarius came to Kirkwall. He remembers that it was only Anders and Varric who came, and that after the fact Hawke had barely even seemed to notice.

“If I had been an inconvenience when Danarius tried to take me, would you have let him?”

The pause before Hawke speaks is too long. Varric swears under his breath and even Sebastian makes a sound of horror. She closes her mouth, lips thin.

Fenris stalks across the square, pushing past her. “That’s what I thought,” he growls, looking up at her. “Vishante kaffas. Go to the Gallows, Hawke.”

She hesitates, as if to say something, but then Fenris hears her turn and walk away. The others troop after her, and Fenris does not look back at them. Instead, he looks down at Anders.

In death, Anders is calmer than he ever was in life. Without his fire, the light in his eyes, he is no more than a ragged bundle of feathers and much-patched cloth. A small pool of blood covers the stones beneath him, very dark and still.

Fenris kneels beside him and brushes Anders’ hair from his face. His eyes are closed, and he is not breathing. He looks…terribly peaceful. All worry and care are gone from his face.

Slowly, Fenris leans down and presses a dry kiss to Anders’ forehead. “Na via lerno victoria, Anders,” he murmurs.

In his head, he hears Anders’ voice, teasing him affectionately as he did once years ago beside a campfire. _Always with the languages I don’t understand_. The thought makes Fenris’ eyes sting.

He stands, before he breaks, and walks away.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It didn’t seem right to put these at the end of the last chapter, so they’re here now!
> 
> In the last chapter, I chose the high-friendship dialogue for the scene, not because of Hawke, but because of _Fenris_. That bit really sucked to write. I’d never seen the actual death scene until I wrote this. And I really wish I had managed to avoid it forever. I cried. 
> 
> “Na via lerno Victoria” is Tevene for “only the living know victory.”

Fenris loads the last of his dried apples into his pack and lashes a waterskin to the side. Mentally, he counts through his supplies. Not much, but enough to get him on the road. He’s no mean survivalist, so he’s not particularly concerned about an expansive list. As long as he has a little food and the means to maintain his equipment, Fenris feels he’s prepared at least to make his way up the coast to Ostwick.

Besides, he doesn’t have the time for more, not with demons rampaging through Kirkwall.

He’s just turning to retrieve the mess kit Aveline gifted him some years ago from its shelf when he hears the back door of the mansion open in the distance.

Looters, most likely; a demon would be roaring or screaming. Fenris takes his time reaching the main hall, slipping quietly through the corridors. He would prefer not to alert intruders of his approach.

He looks around the doorframe and can’t, for a moment, quite understand what he sees. A tall man, carrying himself as if injured, staff strapped to his back over a small traveling pack and bedroll, feathers mantling his shoulders…

“You’re supposed to be dead.” The words come out raw and cracked.

Anders turns to look at Fenris. A smear of drying blood marks his cheek, and his ash-dusted hair has fallen loose, hanging around his face and in his eyes. But he is very much alive. “Justice doesn’t like it when I get stabbed,” he says, “it’s happened before, him bringing me back, so I should have expected it this time, I suppose.”

Fenris feels as if he blinks and is across the hall. He has to stand on his toes to do it, but he wraps his arms around Anders’ shoulders and pulls him down into a tight embrace. Anders makes a small sound of surprise, and a moment later his arms slide around Fenris, too. They’re both trembling.

“I thought you’d be angrier,” Anders says into Fenris’ hair.

There are feathers in Fenris’ face, but he is _not_ going to complain. “I will be,” he says. “Later.”

Anders huffs out a small laugh. “All right.”

If Fenris could manage it, he would stand like this for a very long time. As it is, his feet and calves eventually start to ache from standing on his toes, so he—reluctantly—sinks back down, hands still on Anders’ shoulders. “So your spirit saved you.”

“We took a sword to the heart once,” Anders says. “Really the crown jewel of my scar collection.”

This is the _worst_ time for jokes, but Anders is giving him that sweet expression again, not a smile but plain wide-eyed hope, and it sets a hope of his own fluttering in Fenris’ chest. He doesn’t want to step away from Anders or, really, let go. It seems Anders doesn’t, either.

“I failed you," Anders says after a moment, hope visibly fading. “I had no other choice, I wouldn’t change a thing I’ve done, but…”

“ _We_ failed you.” Fenris holds up a hand, forestalling Anders’ argument. “We had six years to listen to you. To help you to more peaceful ends. We _all_ could have tried to understand you, instead of dismissing you. I’m _not_ pleased with what you’ve done, but I…understand.”

“And the innocent people killed because of me?” Anders shakes his head. “Rubble came down all over Kirkwall and demons are running in the streets…”

Fenris laughs humorlessly. “We forgave Isabela for an entire invasion,” he says, “and no one has ever been angry at me for slaughtering the Fog Warriors after they sheltered and saved me. Besides, if Meredith had gone through with her original plan, I suspect cornered mages in the Gallows would have turned to demon-summoning in self-defense anyway.”

“You sound like you’re trying to convince yourself.”

“Perhaps I am,” Fenris admits. He looks down and takes Anders’ hand. It’s stained with blood and the touch makes the lyrium lines on Fenris’ palm ache a little more; Fenris doesn’t mind. “I have spent a _great_ deal of time convincing myself of things where you are concerned. Let us add this to the list.”

Anders squeezes Fenris’ hand lightly. “I confess I only came back to see Libertas.”

Fenris nods in the direction of the kitchen, where his supplies wait. “I am glad you did. She and all her things are in a basket, waiting to go.”

“Go?”

“I am leaving Kirkwall.”

“Funny story, so am I,” Anders says. He hesitates, and asks, “Would you mind if I tagged along?”

Fenris lifts Anders’ hand and kisses the back of it. “Someone will need to prevent you from getting yourself killed, mage.” He wants to sound irritated, but it only comes out _gentle_.

"Of course," Anders says. For a moment, his fingertips linger on Fenris' jaw, the touch gentle and still trembling a little.

"I see you have supplies," Fenris says.

Anders shrugs. "What I had in the clinic. It's not much."

"Come, then," Fenris says. He turns to head back to the kitchen. "There's more we can carry."

“I can’t promise I’ll stop,” Anders bursts out, before Fenris has taken three steps. “There are still mages who need help. This…what I’ve done is a spark. The flames _will_ rise. It’s my responsibility to see this through to the end.”

“And what is that end?” Fenris asks, pausing and looking back up at Anders.

“Freedom,” Anders says. “ _Not_ a new Imperium, I swear. Just…freedom. The ability to live as we choose. Love as we choose. You have it. I have it. Every mage, every _elf_ , should have it.”

Fenris nods. “I have concerns, Anders,” he says. “I always will. But I will trust your quest more if I am there, in person, to see that you carry it out _correctly_.”

“Of course.” Anders doesn’t smile, not quite, but he looks more serene than he has in months. It comes as no surprise, really, when he leans down and kisses Fenris.

Just for that moment, even as Kirkwall descends into chaos around them, Fenris is at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And...that's a wrap! Thanks for playing, folks!
> 
> For the curious, this is NOT my _deus ex machina_. This is straight from Anders' writer Jennifer Hepler, who wrote [the short story “Anders” about…well, Anders](https://dragonage.fandom.com/wiki/Anders_\(short_story\)). Exercise caution in reading the story, it’s pretty violent and there’s an alarming implication of cannibalism near the end. The relevant passage begins: 
> 
> _And then his sword is level with my chest, and I let it come, because it is only steel and cannot hurt me, for I am not of mortal men._
> 
> I dunno if they just didn’t think this through, if this was supposed to be a plot hook that never got used, if they’d justify permanent death with “Justice wasn’t active when Hawke stabbed Anders,” or what. Regardless of developer intent, this moment makes me believe that there’s _not a chance in hell_ that Anders would be permanently killed by Hawke with a tiny dagger.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who read along with this story, it's been a wild ride and I hope you've enjoyed. Stay tuned and watch this space: you'll notice this is now part of a series. Because I do not know the meaning of "moderation," I have...a vast amount of narrative planned out exploring where Anders and Fenris go in the aftermath of this story. The stories will navigate their still-fraught relationship, the rising tensions in Thedas, the shadow of the past, and how two men can challenge the might of the entire Chantry. 
> 
> I hope to see you there! <3


End file.
